Halo: Combat Devolved
by D.Doberman
Summary: What do you get when you mix the first HALO game, and stupid funny humor? Well, read and find out. NOT inspired by previous "Combat Devolved" stories on FF. This is a original story written by me.
1. Pillar Of Autumn

**Halo: Combat Devolved**

**1. The Pillar Of Autumn**

**0300 Hours**

Master Chief John-117 looked down at the man dressed in yellow with a massive scar across his face. _He looks like that bad guy in my dream I just had… and I didn't like him_. But before Master Chief could do anything to the ugly man, he ran off towards a door to the left.

Chasing after the man, the man turned and ran off down a corridor to the right. "This way!" he shouted.

_What is this? _Master Chief wondered. _A game of tag?!_ "Come here!"

He followed the man for about three meters when the man reached a hatch which abruptly exploded and sent the man flying towards Master Chief.

"Oh… oh my…" Master Chief looked around for any help. "Help? Anyone?" Turning to the right Master Chief spotted some piping he could climb over. As he straddled the piping he noticed a flashing red light. "Pretty colors!" Master Chief said to himself before he looked back and forth at the many hatches. He saw a bloodied body on the floor to the right and headed in that direction.

When all of a sudden a hatch opened. "Oooh!" Master Chief admired the sight ahead. Some type of gas was filling the air and he walked towards it. It caught of fire. "WHOA! HOLY CRAP!"

There was a hatch that he ran through and saw a partially opened blast door. He spotted a man in red ahead carrying a M6D pistol.

But when he walked up to the man he hit the partially opened door. "Dam'mit! I shoulda' ducked," Master Chief said as plasma fire streaked at the man.

"Sweetness!"

"Secure those blast doors!" a soldier said, running toward Master Chief.

Master Chief turned to see the doors closing. "Whoa! Watch it now, buddy." He stepped out of the way just as ahead of him some man was blown apart by some big blue explosion.

He looked down and spotted an arrow pointing towards a hatch labeled: BRIDGE.

Shrugging his shoulders he went through the hatch. It was dark ahead, but there was a faint piece of light and he headed in that direction. He turned left, and then turned right at the next corner. There were two men in red ahead and a guy in a grayish colored uniform.

"Contact." The Marine said, pointing off in the direction of the Covenant troops.

Master Chief walked up to him.

"Sir! The Captain needs you on the bridge ASAP."

"My name is John," Master Chief said politely. "But you can call me Johnny for short."

"You better follow me."

A man behind him cried out, and Master Chief turned to look, just as the Marine took off running.

"Hey wait up for me!" Master Chief cried.

Master Chief followed the Marine through a room where injured marines were lying against walls. They reached a hatch, where there were three men, two of which were in red and the other in orange jumpsuits.

The Marine pointed to the right. "You can't hide from me," he said, just as a plasma blast blew the guy dressed in orange away.

The Marine then turned and ran left.

"Help me!" one of the remaining men cried.

Master Chief paused to help. But the Marine didn't stop—so neither did Master Chief. They went through another hatch, with another arrow with the word: BRIDGE. They ran down the corridor and turned left. The Marine stopped ahead and turned to face Master Chief.

"Captain Keyes is waiting for you, sir." He said sharply.

"I told you already, my name is John."

Something caught Master Chief's eye on the left, and he saw a billboard. There were several pieces of paper on it, but the one that caught his eye was the sign that said: LOST: CALICO CAT ANSWERS TO: JONESY.

But obeying the Marine, Master Chief turned and went into the bridge. There were more red lights, and there were a lot of people on computers. Master Chief had never seen so many computers in one place.

He stumbled across an old man who was looking at this massive screen. The man turned. Master Chief looked at his name tag that said: HELLO MY NAME IS KEYES.

"Oh! Captain Keyes!" Master Chief exclaimed.

"Good to see you, Master Chief. Things aren't going well," Captain Keyes said.

Master Chief heard a beeping noise being him and looked.

"Cortana did her best, but… we didn't stand a chance."

Suddenly a holographic image of a lady not wearing anything appeared above a trash can. She started to say something, but Master Chief wasn't listening to her, he was just staring at the image.

"Did you sleep well?" she asked.

"Yes, I did. I had this one dream about—"

There was a massive blast, and the entire ship shook.

"Report!" Keyes said.

"It must've been one of their boarding parties. I guess the anti—"

A man started shouting. Master Chief couldn't believe the confusion as Cortana began talking too. Then Captain Keyes began talking.

"Which is where you come in, Master Chief…"

Underneath his helmet, he raised an eyebrow. There was an awkward moment of silence.

"Earth." Keyes finally said.

It made perfect sense now. "I understand," Master Chief said.

The hot AI appeared again. "The _Pillar Of Autumn_ will continue evasive maneuvers…" It wasn't long until Master Chief wasn't listening again.

"Excellent job, Cortana," Keyes said. "Are you ready?"

Maser Chief scratched his bottom. This place was really starting to get boring.

"Yank me," Cortana said.

Keyes fiddled with the trash can and retrieved a small box shaped thing. It looked like a Gameboy game. Master Chief took it and looked at it strangely. _What kind of person gives someone a game for a handheld device that doesn't even exist anymore?_ Master Chief wondered, as he stuck it into his helmet.

"Hmm, your body structure isn't much different from the Autumn," the female's voice said in his head.

"WHOA!" Master Chief shouted, holding his hands up in protest. "What are you doing?"

Captain Keyes held out a M6D. "I don't keep it loaded, son. You'll have to find ammo as you go." He turned.

_A pistol_. _I actually just got a pistol!_ Master Chief was delighted. _Now… how does this thing work_? He began turning the gun around in his hand.

"Get movin' Master Chief," Captain Keyes said annoyed. "There's nothin' you can do here."

"Oh, I know that. I'm just trying to figure out how this thing works."

"You what?!" Captain Keyes asked incredulously.

Master Chief saw the trigger of the M6D and pulled it. The 12.7mm x 40 M225 Armor Piercing, High Explosive bullet tore through Captain Keyes's head.

The man fell to the floor.

"OH MY—!"

Gun fire sounded behind Master Chief.

He ran.

He went back the way he had come. The Marine that he had followed was gone.

A weird sound spoke ahead of him. It sounded like a guttural bark. He went through the open hatch and saw three one-meter tall creatures running around in circles with guns that glowed green.

"Pretty."

They shot at him. He fired twenty rounds at them. One of the Grunts threw a plasma grenade, but it exploded behind him.

"I have got to get one of those," Master Chief said to himself after the three Grunts were dead. The long bar, that was usually blue, which wasn't now, on the top right flashed, and he had three yellow smaller bars of health below that.

A hatch ahead of him opened. He went into the room, and recognized it as the mess. There was a big blue alien shooting at the marines that were also in the room. _I guess they couldn't share the same food._ Master Chief decided as the alien was shot dead.

He went over to examine the body, when he spotted two plasma grenades. "Sweetness!" He exclaimed picking both up. There was more firing behind him as more of the big aliens appeared with Grunts.

"Those are the bad guys!" A Marine told Master Chief. "Kill them!"

Shrugging his shoulders, Master Chief chucked a grenade. It hit a wall, and bounced on top of a marine. The marine ran in circles. It didn't make sense to Master Chief why the Marine didn't just take the grenade off and throw it at the aliens. The grenade exploded.

Master Chief exhausted all the ammo in his M6D, but he picked up an MA5B assault rifle and shot long bursts at the aliens. They dropped more plasma grenades, and within a few seconds the mess was cleaned out of alien presence.

Master Chief went through one of the open hatches and saw a Grunt. It was unaware of his presence, so he held down the trigger of the MA5B and the Grunt was torn into pieces. _This military stuff really isn't that hard_. Master Chief thought to himself. _I don't why people send them through weeks and months and years of training. I really don't. I mean, I've been doing this for the past five minutes and I'm just as good as those Marines back there_.

He found an ammunition cache and stocked up, but didn't know how to reload the MA5B. But among the cache was a health pack. The yellow bars now were full, and were back to blue. He went down a corridor and went left, when the _Pillar of Autumn_ began to shake.

He turned right and was facing the back of a blue Elite. Marines ahead were shooting at it, but Master Chief tossed a plasma grenade and it stuck to the Elite's butt.

"SA-WHEATNESS!" Master Chief shouted in triumph, punching his fist in the air as the Elite ran toward the marines. There were three marines, and one brushed past Master Chief and unloaded a clip of ammo at the dead Elite.

"Hey," Master Chief asked the Marine. "How do you reload your rifle?"

The man looked at him in amazement. "You're kidding… right?"

"No, no. I'm serious guys. How do you reload your rifle?"

The marine did a demonstration. "Thanks!" Master Chief shouted as he stuck a new clip into the MA5B, before he ran off. He ran around and saw two marines standing by escape pod hatch 31. There was a big explosion and the marines were thrown into the bulkhead across the hatch.

Master Chief stood there dumbfound as some Grunts came out and fired plasma at him. He chucked a plasma grenade at them and it bounced into the hatch. There was a loud growl before the plasma grenade went off.

With the area clear Master Chief went inside, and saw two boxes that contained squid looking things. When he picked it up his shields turned green.

He left and followed the three marines that he had seen earlier, and that's when Master Chief saw a green arrow that said: STAIRS. And if there was anything that Master Chief liked, it was stairs.

Ahead was a Elite and a Grunt, but Master Chief rushed past them. He had to get to those stairs. He turned right, then left, then right. _Left, right, same thing_. Master Chief thought to himself as he shot a Grunt in his way.

There was a little engagement as he came face-to-face with a Elite. He came out winner, but the green status bar was gone and he was back to the three yellow bars of health. He waved to the marines behind the blockades, and turned to leave. One pointed at him, and exclaimed: "Wow, there he is!"

Master Chief blushed.

But as he rounded a corner he spotted a health pack.

He continued on, shot the Grunts and Elites that stood in his way. It was getting easier by the second it seemed to him. He reached a dark room lighted only by a flame. He spotted a partially opened blaster door, which was held open by a box. He headed for it and...

Hit the door.

"DAM'MIT!" He cursed aloud.

He ducked underneath and picked up the M6D ammunition from a dead midshipman. He marched on, and found the staircase.

_Finally something good showed up_, Master Chief said to himself as he jumped three steps at a time up the stairs. A marine followed him and they took out the Grunts and Elites. One Elite was blown off the top landing by a grenade and hit the bottom floor face-first.

Master Chief walked into a dark room again, and spotted two Grunts that hadn't detected him. He tried sneaking up on them when something jumped out in front of him.

"HOLY CRAP!! CRAP, CRAP, CRAP!" he opened fire on the Elite.

Cortana, the naked holographic lady finally spoke to Master Chief.

"Hurry! The launch pads are launching!"

Master Chief ran to the first one, just as it launched. He shrugged his shoulders and went to the next one. It too had just launched. "Dam'mit." He muttered going to the third and last one… just as it launched.

"OH COM'ON!" he cried, and opened fire at the escape pod.

Cortana being kind led him to the maintenance hatch. It was a tight fit, and Master Chief's MJONIR armor scraped the walls. It was really dark.

"Turn on your light," Cortana told him, irritated.

He turned it on and instantly there was light.

"And God said, 'Let there be light—'" Master Chief started to say.

"Just shut up and get moving." Cortana snapped.

"Bossy!" Master Chief muttered to himself as he turned left, went down a ways and turned left again. The ship shook more violently now, and he turned right, followed by another left. He went right and saw an exit and a Grunt scanning the area.

He knew what he was going to do. He snuck up, his last plasma grenade in hand—and tossed it at the Grunt's exposed arm. It stuck and the Grunt cried: "Help get it off of me!"—running to its friends.

When he reached the hatch the grenade had gone off and had blown up most of the Grunts there.

"Turn off your light! Or it'll wear out!" Cortana told him.

He continued on and shot down a Elite that wore red-ish colored armor, and found another maintenance hatch. This time he remembered his light. Master Chief went through it expecting to turn left. It was right this time.

A Grunt cried and ran left. Master Chief shot him down, and heard something behind him. He turned and nearly peed in his MJONIR. A Grunt was standing there, shocked to death by the massive form in front of it.

Then Cortana's voice came into his head. "The damage is extensive. I don't know how much more the Autumn can take."

"That's reassuring," Master Chief said as he turned and ran quicker through the hatch.

He came out and found another hatch. He ran through that and came out facing escape pod hatch 61.

"There's one last lifeboat. Get aboard it quick!" Cortana told him.

Master Chief picked up a marine that had tripped and threw him into the pod.

"Now would be a very good time to leave," Cortana suggested.

The escape pod was launched and a marine sitting down in one of the many seats asked "We aren't gonna die out here, are we sir?"

He was about to respond they weren't, when Cortana interrupted him.

"Look!" she cried out.

Master Chief went to the front of the escape pod. For the first time for a while, Master Chief was frightened. Ahead of the pod was a massive ring. "What is that?" he asked.

No one answered; because, no one knew the answer.

The escape pod was falling faster.

"Are you sure you don't want to take a seat?" Cortana asked.

Master Chief scanned the pod. There were no seats remaining. "We'll be fine."

"If I still had fingers," Cortana whined. "They'd be crossed."

"What happened to your fingers?" he asked.


	2. Flawless Cowboy?

**2. Flawless Cowboy**

**0532 Hours**

Everything was happening too fast for Master Chief. He shut his eyes and… yes, he screamed, and pulled down the trigger to his MA5B.

Then without warning everything stopped. The escape pod crashed, and abruptly Master Chief's voice was cut off.

There was a bright flash of light, and then everything became blurry, then became more focused. While something was shouting at him.

"CHIEF!" it was that naked hologram, Master Chief realized. "Chief can you hear me?"

"Loud-and-clear, sir!" he shouted, military like. Inside his helmet he had a smile of a prankster.

"At last. Are you all right? Can you move?"

Master Chief shrugged his shoulders. "Possibly. I mean, I still have legs."

"Well, then get moving!"

"Bossy," Master Chief said as he walked down the aisle of dead soldiers. Every single marine in there had bullet wounds in their bodies. A few had actually been ejected from the escape pod and were lying on the grass outside.

"LAND HO!" Master Chief shouted like a sailor, and sprinted out.

Outside was amazing. The grass was the greenest grass that Master Chief ever saw. Then Cortana ruined his fun.

"Warning. Multiple Covenant dropships inbound. I would recommend we move into those hills. If we're lucky they'll think everyone died in the crash."

"Lady," Master Chief said, picking up ammunition and got into the escape pod. "Lucky is my middle name."

Cortana must've disliked his answer, because suddenly, eerie music began playing in Master Chief's head.

After a second or so, Master Chief was scared. "Can you turn that stuff off? And play songs like… I don't know. Twinkle-Little Star, perhaps?"

She ignored him, as a massive shadow traversed the ground. The little aliens ran in front of the back hatch of the escape pod. Master Chief shouted and fired at them with his assault rifle. He took them down. Then a big blue alien stepped in.

"Hi…" Master Chief said weakly, tossing a M9 frag grenade at it.

The Elite stepped aside and laughed—

Then it blew up as the M9 went off and caused a chain reaction explosion with the other grenades around it.

"Sweetness!" Master Chief said, then walked out.

The entire Covenant scouting team was dead so Master Chief continued on his way. He saw something massively big, shoot up into the sky, almost like a spaceship. It was blue and glowed, and went up as high as he could see.

He crossed a long pipe that crossed over a massive ravine, He looked down.

"Oh my…" he trembled. He was afraid of heights, and this was too high up.

"What's that matter?" Cortana asked.

"We're like… one million feet up high!" he screamed, until he thought he snapped a vocal chord.

Then something began shooting at him. He turned and saw two purple flying vehicles shooting at him.

"You want some of me!" he shouted, forgetting about how high he was and opened fire at them. He chucked a plasma grenade at one, and it exploded.

He turned to the second one and emptied four magazines at it. It erupted into a ball of flame and crashed down, down, down, into a long fall down that one million feet. And Master Chief remembered where he was.

"AH!" He began screaming.

"Just get going!" Cortana told him.

So with shaky knees, Master Chief slowly walked across the pipe, with his arms outstretched for balance. He wasn't going to be taking any chances.

He reached the other side.

"I never want to do that again!" he cried.

"Me neither, and definitely not with you!"

Master Chief began to walk up a cliff, checking his weapons, seeing how fast he could switch weapons. He could do it in a split-second.

That's when he noticed several Covenant soldiers ahead.

"I spotted several enemy…" he forgot the word. "Drat, what's that one word?" he asked Cortana.

"I think the wording is contact. And I knew about those soldiers. They came up on your motion tracker five seconds ago."

"Motion tracker?"

"That circle thing on the bottom of your HUD," Cortana explained. "That's your motion tracker, and that yellow dot is you. Red dots are bad. Green dots are friends."

"Oh, I thought it was a picture of a pie, and someone took a slice from it."

Cortana remained silent.

Master Chief sniped the group. That was fun.

He zoomed in on a Grunt that was running around, and pulled the trigger. It fell to the ground. "This is so sweetness," Master Chief said happily, and sniped another.

After he sniped the entire Covenant scouting party, he marched on.

"I'm reading a lifeboat beacon just over this hill," Cortana told him.

Master Chief stopped, looked around to see if anyone was watching and rolled down the hill.

"Stop that!" Cortana snapped. "Help those marines!"

He frowned. Military people were so serious.

"Yes, sir!"

He stood up and began shooting at the Grunts that were staring in disbelief at him.

After he and the marines took out the Covenant soldiers, they ran up to him.

"Good to see you sir!" one shouted. Master Chief saw his tag, it said 'Sergeant Avery Johnson.'

"Welcome to the party," another said.

"Par-TAY!" Master Chief hollered. "WHOO!"

"Right…" the marines agreed reluctantly. "If you say so."

Master Chief hung out on the top of the strange structure while the other marines and Sergeant Johnson fired at the Covenant soldiers that came from the Covenant dropships.

There wasn't any cake, and there weren't even party hats at this party, and Master Chief was disappointed.

Finally a UNSC Pelican came into view, carrying a Warthog. Master Chief smiled. He wanted to drive that thing! He jumped off the structure and ran to the landing Pelican, he reached the M12 Warthog LRV first and got into the drivers side. He noticed the seats were genuine cowhide leather.

Two marines took the gunner and the passenger's side seat.

"Let's roll out!" a marine shouted.

"Hold on tight, guys," Master Chief said as he put the pedal to the floor. "We're going my style!"

The marine beside him, looked at him. "You do have your license… right?"

"What license?"

Before any of the marines could act, the Warthog reached suicidal speeds and they just sat quietly, praying that Master Chief wouldn't get them killed—which was bound to happen after he turned to the right and headed straight toward the edge of a cliff.

"OH MY—" a marine cried, peeing his pants.

The other screamed loudly.

Master Chief laughed as the air rushed through him. They hit the ground, and nothing happened. Not even a tire blew out from the large amount of force brought on it. Ahead of them was the entrance of some type of cave.

"SA-WHEATNESS, let's do that again—" Master Chief began.

"Just keep going!" a marine pled. "Please! I beg of you."

Master Chief stepped on the accelerator and ramped into the cave.

"We're going a little fast," the other marine warned.

"Gosh, I hope you know, you both are very demanding!"

He jerked the Warthog around the corners very sharply, but never did hit the walls. Some time passed, when he saw a turn. But the ground was sloped and they fell through.

"Strange." Master Chief said as he continued.

"The path ahead is missing!" a marine noted.

Master Chief stepped on the gas.

"WE'RE GONNA DIE!"

They made it across the crevice—barely. The back tires spun for a second as they hung over the edge, but they finally caught onto some ground and the Warthog shot forward.

There was a sharp U-turn and they turned left coming to a large hanger. There were Covenant soldiers walking around.

"Let's get 'em!" Master Chief hollered as he drove up to them.

And passed them.

"STOP THE 'HOG!" a marine called. "There's no bridge ahead."

Master Chief slammed on the brakes with both feet, and the Warthog came to a complete stop.

He reversed the Warthog and turned around. "How do we get across then?"

"There's a control panel up there," a marine pointed to a very high point.

"I'm on it…" Master Chief said, he was frustrated but he knew what he had to do. He had a mission. "Cover me."

"Will do, Chief!"

"Call me, John."

Master Chief jumped out of the Warthog and ran up a sloping 'stairway' when he ran into two Major Elites.

"Oh my—"

The Elite closest to him swung at him with his plasma rifle. Master Chief dodged it, and stuck a plasma grenade onto his chest.

"TIMBER!" He shouted as he ran down the sloping stairs. Both of the Elites blew up, splatters of purple blood hit Master Chief's green MJONIR armor.

He ran to the control panel and tapped it.

Two pairs of pipes combined together and activated an energy bridge. Master Chief turned and jumped down the wall. He slid down while the other marine continued to fire, with the mounted gun, at the Covenant soldiers surrounding them.

Master Chief shouted a madman style scream as he opened fire with his MA5B assault rifle.

The Minor Elite that he ruthlessly assaulted fell to the ground, his body filled with lead. Master Chief hopped into the car. The marine that was in the passenger side seat lay dead, his blood soaking in the seats.

"And this leather was genuine cowhide!" he cursed as he made a U-turn and drove across the energy bridge. "People just don't know how to take care of nice things anymore."

The body of the marine was flung out of the Warthog when Master Chief made the U-turn.

"He wasn't even buckled, and that's against the law!" Master Chief glanced back at the marine that was still with him. "Are you buckled mister?!"

The marine glanced down. "No, sir… I'm standing."

"Well be careful then…" Master Chief. "What's your name?"

"Frank."

"Hi Frank, you can call me—"

"John," Frank finished. "You told me already."


	3. Reunion Tour

**Author's Note:** Thank you so much for reading Halo: Combat Devolved—the reviews are great! Thanks everyone, they make my day. Enjoy Chapter Three and tell your friends to read it.

**3. Reunion Tour**

**0730 Hours**

Master Chief John-117 came to the end of the tunnel, while Frank, the marine, operated the turret in the back. Outside there was a stream that fell off the cliff. Master Chief wanted to stay as far away from the edge as he could. So they went the other way, going over the bumps on the hill.

Master Chief drove the M12 Warthog LRV across the stream and they came across a Jackal, the bird-like reptile. Frank filled his insides with lead, while Master Chief drove in circles. After the Jackal was killed, Master Chief drove through a gully that was marked with lights.

Ahead there were several structures. Cortana suggested they check out the buildings for any survivors. Master Chief drove up to the buildings and saw several red dots on his motion tracker.

"I found some!" he announced. But he was surprised when the Grunts began shooting at him.

"Red is bad!" Frank shouted firing the 25-mm Gauss cannon. "And I'm gonna fill those kitty-cats so full of lead, that the only thing they'll be able to be used as are pencils!"

Frank would have, if Master Chief did swerve and jerk the car around, trying to dodge the onslaught of plasma and needles. He accidentally ran over two Grunts and a Elite.

"You like that?!" Frank shouted as he shot more Covenant soldiers.

Master Chief stopped the Warthog and jumped out.

"What'cha doin' man?"

"John!" Master Chief reminded him.

"What'cha doin' John?!" Frank asked still firing the gun.

"I'm searching for some survivors."

Master Chief hid by one of the flat stairs and chucked all his grenades up there. But two Elites survived.

One yelled at him as Master Chief fired his M6D pistol. The blue Elite fell down, and dropped no grenades. The second one, a red one, ducked and dodged the bullets.

_Isn't that like impossible?_ Master Chief wondered as one of his bullets finally hit the shield. _I mean, bullets are fired at like hundreds of miles per hour… aren't they_?

Frank suddenly appeared behind the Elite and bashed it's head against the wall.

"You like that?!" he asked, shooting the now dead Elite brain's out onto the ground. Two plasma grenades fell from the Elite.

"MINE!" Master Chief shouted, chasing the grenades to the edge of the cliff. "I call them—oh… crap." He looked down and saw that they were really high up.

"What is it?" Frank asked, coming up behind him.

"We're really high up!"

"Yeah… what about it?"

"I hate heights."

Frank shrugged his shoulders. "Well, let's get more COVIES! WHOO!" he chased off after some Jackals.

Master Chief slowly followed him, and then he moved faster after he had gotten away from the cliff. Two Jackals began firing at him, but deflected his shots with their shields. Finally he primed a grenade and threw it at them. It fell short by five feet.

They laughed at him and fired some more. Master Chief was about to prime the last grenade when the first one went off. The blast sent both Jackals over the cliff.

"Oh my—"

"HOOAH!" Frank said, coming up behind him.

"Who-ha?" Master Chief asked.

"It's an expression we marines say when it's totally spectacular," Frank explained. "Well… me marine say when it's totally spectacular. Let's go in here."

Frank led the way inside one of the structures, which was like a basement. A Grunt ran in front of Frank, and Frank bashed it's head against the wall like he had earlier with the Elite.

"Hooah!" Master Chief shouted.

"No," Frank said, glumly. "I do it all the time."

"Oh…"

They found two marines and a pilot. One of the marines had a sweet looking hat that Master Chief really wanted. When he asked for it, the marine brushed him aside and told him to back off.

"I've called for evacuation," Cortana said.

"Let's go!" Frank shouted, leading them back the way they just came from.

There wasn't a Pelican waiting for them, so while they waited Master Chief showed them the Warthog.

"This here's my baby," he said proudly, sitting on the hood of the vehicle. "I got 'er five years ago, and—"

"What are you talking about?!" Frank asked. "This is a standard military-issue M12 Warthog. There's nothin' spectacular about it."

Master Chief lowered his head. "oh." He said quietly.

"Echo four-nineteen to Cortana, come in," a voice said in Master Chief's COM.

"I read you Echo four-nineteen. We have survivors." Cortana said.

"Roger Cortana. We're on our way." The COM closed and the surviving marines ran off.

"Don't you think it's kinda weird that people talk to computers?" Master Chief asked Frank as they followed behind the marines. The marine with the sweet looking hat climbed onto the passenger side seat.

He noticed the blood on the seat. "What happened here?" he asked.

"That's where a marine died because he didn't wear his seat belt." Master Chief said seriously.

The marine studied Master Chief for a moment then buckled himself as the shadow of a Pelican was cast over them.

"We're saved!" a marine shouted as he ran to the Pelican.

The two survivors climbed onto the Pelican, and it dusted off. Master Chief, Frank, and the man with the sweet looking hat (Carson) drove off on the Warthog. Cortana told him to search for more survivors in a different place.

They came out by the stream and Master Chief saw two Banshee's patrolling the area. Frank began shooting at them with the Gauss.

"Punch it!" Carson shouted.

Both Banshee's fired off a bomb that exploded right beside of the Warthog when they entered a second gulley. This flipped the Warthog, and everyone was ejected out of the Warthog.

Carson hit the rocks and died instantly. Master Chief drew his M6D and fired at the Banshee that flew directly over them. It exploded with the first shot and crashed into the mountain.

The second Banshee turned tail and disappeared.

Frank and Master Chief flipped the Warthog over. Frank got back onto the back gunner, as Master Chief found and took Carson's hat.

"Why'd you do that?" Frank asked as Master Chief climbed back into the driver's seat.

"I wanted it."

"Did you plan to have those Banshee's kill Carson?" he asked.

"No. It just… happened," Master Chief stepped on the accelerator.

At the end of the gulley was a hill that overlooked a lone structure and a escape pod. There were Jackals surrounding the escape pod.

Master Chief put the pedal to the floor and gunned it towards them.

One Jackal had his back to the Warthog, and when it came up it splattered it's blood and guts on the hood and windshield. Master Chief looked for the wipers but didn't find any—just as he ran over a second Jackal.

"Dam'mit," he punched the dashboard.

"What is it?" Frank asked as he shot the last Jackal down.

"This Warthog doesn't have wipers!"

"None of them do."

"Well, how am I supposed to see through blood and guts?!"

Frank saw all the blood on the windshield. "Dang, I don't know, John."

"There are some marines in the hills above," Cortana said. "Get up there ASAP."

"ASAP," Master Chief thought aloud. "Amend sh-t and poop?"

"As soon as possible," Frank told him. "But I like yours better."

When they got to the top of the hill, a marine shouted "Get outta here!"

"We're your rescue team," Master Chief informed them.

A marine hopped into the side passenger seat.

"That's seat is cursed," Frank told them. "I wouldn't recommend you sit in it."

The marine noticed all the blood. "I get'cha sir," he held up a necklace. "But I'm covered."

"What's that?" Master Chief asked, looking at the strange carved figure on the necklace.

"This was given to me by a Indian shaman. He told me that I would be protected from evil devils and spirits," the marine told them. "So far I haven't been hit by any plasma from the Covies yet."

"How long have you been in the war?" Frank asked.

The marine cringed. "Two weeks."

"Hey!" a marine shouted, running up to beside Master Chief. "Does anyone here know how to snipe? We lost our sniper a while back."

Master Chief raised his hand quickly and waved it back and forth. "Pick me! Oh, please pick me!"

"You!" the marine pointed at Master Chief. "Get out of that 'hog and grab that gun, those Covies are comin' up."

Master Chief jumped out and trained his MA5B for the sniper rifle, just as a red Elite ran up to him. He shot the Elite at point blank, and the 14.5-mm Armor Piercing, Fin-Stabilized, Discarding Sabot, chewed through the Elite's body and exited out the back.

The Elite howled and fell to the ground.

There was some serious engagement, as Elites, Jackals, and Grunts surrounded the UNSC survivors. But luckily for the marines, Master Chief had a full arsenal of plasma and frag grenades.

When all the Covenant soldiers were killed, a Pelican flew over head and picked up the marines. The one that climbed into the side seat remained there.

"So," Master Chief said driving away as the Pelican dusted off. "I'm John," he jerked his thumb at Frank. "And this is Frank. What's your name?"

"Vern."

"Vern?" Frank snorted. "That's not a name."

"Sure it is," Vern protested. "My father's name was Vern, and his father before him, and his father before him, and his father before him, and on and on for seven generations."

"That's really stupid." Frank said.

"Whoa!" Master Chief shouted as he dodged a rock. "Look ahead."

In front of them was a massive amount of rocks as if there had been a landslide. He spotted some marines among the rocks.

"Ah, this is it!" Frank announced.

Master Chief skillfully drove through the rocks as if he had been driving his entire life. He pulled up to a rock that overlooked the entire area. There were no marines up there.

"They're down there!" Vern pointed out. "But let's stay here."

So as Covenant forces dropped in on their fork-shaped dropships, Master Chief, Frank, and Vern remained in the Warthog. Eventually four marines came running up to them as the third Covenant dropship flew overhead.

Vern shot down a Grunt as a fourth dropship came inbound.

"We are so… dead!" Frank cried.

"Not yet," Master Chief told him. "Because I can still hear my heart pounding."

Covenant soldiers came up on the rock. Grunts threw plasma grenades, while Elites shot with their plasma rifles. Three marines died, while the Covenant soldiers were mowed down by Frank who operated the mounted gun.

It was deathly quiet after the last Covenant soldier they saw died. Master Chief's motion tracker showed that there where still more Covenant soldiers around.

"Let's drive off this rock!" Vern suggested.

Master Chief turned the Warthog in full 180° so he saw the edge of the rock. He stepped on the pedal and they flew off the boulder—and onto the boulders below.

The Warthog flipped and everyone fell out. Master Chief and Frank flipped the Warthog over, but Vern was nowhere to be found.

"Did he say he was going somewhere?" Master Chief asked as he climbed into the driver's seat.

Frank shook his head as he took his normal position on the back. "I didn't hear him say anything."

"We should search the area to find any stragglers," Cortana said.

"On it," Master Chief said, hopping out of the Warthog. Frank followed him.

They never found any stragglers. But they did find Vern, who had run back up to the rock and was hanging out with the other surviving marine.

Cortana must've called for a Pelican, because a Pelican pilot hailed for Master Chief.

"New traffic on the Battlenet. I found Captain Keyes!" Cortana exclaimed. "He's being held on the Covenant cruiser, Truth and Reconciliation.

_Wait a second,_ Master Chief thought. _Didn't I shoot that guy?_

"Cortana is that right?"

"Yes, Chief. I found him."

"I thought he died."

"No… he just got injured."

"Oh..." Next time he'd have to finish the job—correctly.

"The Truth and Reconciliation is on a desert plateau, roughly three hundred kilometers up spin."

A Pelican landed close to where all the marines were waiting for it.

"There's our ride!" Cortana said. "Let's get aboard, and get outta here."

Master Chief climbed aboard along with Frank, Vern, and the other surviving marine.

"Let's move out, Lieutenant," Cortana talked to the pilot. "I think we'll need your help on a rescue mission."


	4. Truth And Reconciliation

**Author's Note: **Thank you all for reading! Halo: Combat Devolved is now my most viewed story than any of my others on both FanFiction and FictionPress! I just want everyone to know that I died over twenty times to get you this great chapter. I hope you enjoy it, and please tell me what you think, because comments always make me feel good and want to write more. Good hunting!

**4. Truth And Reconciliation**

**1700 Hours**

Cortana was briefing Master Chief and an entire Pelican full of UNSC marines. Of course, Master Chief wasn't listening. He was inspecting his S2 AM sniper rifle that he had picked up earlier that day from a dead marine. He wondered how that marine had died.

"How do we get aboard the ship, if it's in the air?" a marine asked Cortana.

"There's a grav-lift. That's our ticket in," a burly commander told the marine.

The Pelican touched down. "Once we get aboard, I should be able to track Captain Keyes with his neural implants."

Master Chief was the first to hop out.

"Stick to the higher ground, to the right." Cortana told Master Chief. "We should be able to recon the Covenant position without being spotted. I've detected multiple Covenant stationary guns on the next pass. I recommend you use your sniper rifle to take out the gunners while I call for marine support."

Ahead of the marines and hovering over some of the cliffs was massive ship that reminded Master Chief of a whale.

"What in the world is that?" he asked Frank, who was standing next to him.

"That is a Covenant cruiser—the _Truth and Reconciliation_," Frank explained. "According to Cortana, Captain Keyes and other officers are being held prisoners aboard."

"And you better get your butt up ahead!" the squad leader said to Master Chief. "You're point."

"What?"

"It means you're first to die," Frank whispered to Master Chief.

"NOW GET GOIN'!" the squad leader barked.

_Did Cortana say go left or right?_ Master Chief wondered as he walked ahead of the group. He decided to go left.

He spotted a Jackal walking in circles around a boulder ahead. "Perfect." Master Chief muttered to himself as he aimed at the Jackal, and pulled the trigger. A single bullet shot out the muzzle of the S2 AM sniper rifle, and blasted the Jackal's brains on the rock, just as a Grunt mounted a Shade stationary gun.

Master Chief aimed at the Grunt, and pulled the trigger. _Easy as pie_, Master Chief thought to himself as the Grunt collapsed. _Pie? I like pie._

A Minor Elite came into his view on his left. Master Chief aimed at his head as well, and was about to pull the trigger when the Elite turned and went behind a boulder.

"Crap." Master Chief muttered, and then he spotted a Grunt sneaking up in his direction.

_Bang_—the sniper rifle fired, and the Grunt fell. A Grunt fifteen feet away from the felled Grunt ran off, heading towards the Shade. Master Chief took him out as well.

His gun clicked, and he reloaded it as a Jackal inspected both of the dead Grunts. It's head turned and looked directly at Master Chief. John fumbled with the sniper rifle and took aim with the gun. He wasn't sure if it had seen him, but he wasn't taking any chances.

The Jackal fell as the Minor Elite came back. _This time, I'm so gonna get this guy_. Master Chief aimed his gun at the Elite—zoomed in as close as he could—and counted to three in his head. _Three; t_he Elite looked to it's left. _Two;_ it looked to it's right. _One; _it went behind the boulder.

"DAM'MIT!" Master Chief shouted, and then he realized his outcry had alerted the rest of the Covenant soldiers that were still alive. "Crap."

A Grunt cried out and the Elite ran toward Master Chief, his plasma rifle fiery hot. It fired off three rounds as marines' flooded past Master Chief, the flashlights on their MA5Bs on and bright.

"Get 'em!" Vern shouted, rushing pass Master Chief.

"Let's go John!" Frank hollered.

The marines shot down the Elite and Grunts faster than Master Chief reloaded his S2 AM sniper rifle.

"Wow," Master Chief exclaimed. "You guys are quick."

To his right, five marines leapt from off a cliff in unison. They began firing on Covenant reinforcements that had arrived. An Elite ducked behind a rock, and Master Chief tossed a plasma grenade.

"Frag in!" he shouted. "Look out below!"

"You mean, 'Frag out,' don't you?" Frank asked, as he knelt down on his knee and fired his MA5B.

"That too."

The Elite was blown halfway across the small canyon they were in. The Grunt turned tail and ran.

"Don't let them get away!" a marine shouted.

"You got it!" Master Chief chased after the Grunts… until he reached the edge of the cliff. He looked down, and froze in his shoes. He couldn't even see the ground from where he was.

"Crap." Frank muttered.

"What is it?" Vern asked.

"John is afraid of heights."

"You're kiddin' me… right?"

Two Jackals began firing at Master Chief, and Frank tossed a M9 grenade and they were blown over the cliff. Master Chief watched them fall, fall, fall until he couldn't see them anymore.

"C'mon John," Frank tried pulling Master Chief away from the cliff. "Let's go get some more Covies."

Master Chief willingly obliged.

"STOP!" Cortana shouted.

Master Chief continued walking.

"Did you hear me?" she asked. "I said 'STOP!'"

"You didn't say 'Simon says, Stop,'" Master Chief grinned.

"Whatever," Cortana sighed. "I'll let you do it your own way."

Ahead of him was a Shade and a couple of Grunts. Master Chief pulled out his S2 AM sniper rifle and sniped the Grunt that had mounted the Shade. Then a Grunt began firing little pink needles at him. They poked and tickled his side, before they ultimately exploded.

"Ouch!" Master Chief cried. "That really hurt!"

The marines came running up behind and mowed down the Grunt and two Elites. They marched on, shooting down anything that moved.

"Covenant up ahead," Cortana told Master Chief after they finished shooting down some Grunts. "The path on the left should let us sneak up behind them."

"We'll hang back while you get in position, Chief," a marine told Master Chief.

Master Chief walked alone ahead. He saw a path on his right, and went up it. He pulled out his sniper rifle and sniped a Grunt on a Shade. Then he accidentally hit a button on his scope, and the view turned into a neon green color.

"What the?" Master Chief said to himself. He pressed the button again, and it turned back to normal view. "Sweetness!"

"Warning," Cortana said. "Covenant dropship inbound."

Strange music began playing again in his helmet.

"Hey, lady?" Master Chief asked. He had forgotten her name, it was something like Morgana, or something like that. "Could you change the music to like… funk or somethin' like that?"

"No."

The dropship flew overhead, and the marines ran over to where it began to descent. "Take positions!" a marine ordered.

Master Chief ducked behind some trees and saw a pyramid shaped thing. He touched it, and immediately he vanished.

"John?!" Frank shouted, who was coming up behind him. "Where'd you go?"

"I'm right here!" Master Chief exclaimed. "I'm invisible."

"No, really; where are you?" Frank looked around.

Master Chief ignored Frank and noticed his weapon was invisible too. "Sweetness! No one can see me!" he ran up to the dropship and stuck an Elite.

The Grunts around the Elite didn't even have a chance.

"Hooah!" Frank shouted. "John's a hero!"

When the Covenant soldiers were all dead, the marines took off running toward a large trench between two cliffs that was lit by several floodlights. A Grunt ran out in front of him, and Master Chief sniped him point blank.

A second Grunt and Elite came out, and Master Chief tossed three plasma grenades at them. The explosion blew them away, along with two other marines. Only John, Frank, and Vern remained.

The trench ended sooner than Master Chief expected. When he got out of it, there were Covenant soldiers everywhere, including four Shades. There was a strange long tube that touched from the ship that was frozen above to the ground below. It took the them five minutes to clear out the entire area, just as a dropship flew over their heads.

"Let's go get 'em!" Frank shouted, running towards the dropship.

Three Grunts and a Jackal jumped out of the dropship, only to be mowed down by Frank and Vern's MA5B.

"What's that do?" Master Chief asked Cortana while Frank and Vern killed the Covenant soldiers.

"That's the grav-lift."

"Oh."

Several Covenant soldiers fell from the ship inside the tube and touched the ground.

"Are we bad or what?" Vern asked, as he began firing at a Grunt.

The small reinforcements didn't last long, but no sooner had they died, then another group of soldier came down.

And that's when Master Chief noticed he only had one bar.

"Dang it," he muttered, but loud enough for Frank to hear.

"What is it, John?" Frank asked between reloading his MA5B.

"Service out here is bad. I only got one bar."

"I saw a medic kit down by that grav-lift."

Master Chief jumped over the edge of the small cliff and landed by an ammunition cache. He stocked up on extra ammo, just as a third group of Covenant soldiers fell from the grav-lift.

"Get out of there John!" Vern shouted.

Frank and Vern covered Master Chief as he sprinted away. After running to the trench, they called him back.

Master Chief turned around just to see a pair of Hunters fall from the grav-lift.

"Use your sniper rifle," Frank told him. "They're weak at the orange spots."

Four shots later, both of the Hunters were dead.

"Hooah!" Frank shouted.

"It's the Hunter Hunter," Vern shouted.

"Who?" Master Chief asked.

"Well, it's sorta like the Crocodile Hunter, who hunted crocodiles; but the Hunter Hunter."

"Sweetness."

Cortana called a Pelican for reinforcements while Master Chief jumped into the center of the long tube of the grav-lift. He looked upward; it was a long way up.

The Pelican came into view, and landed. Five more marines joined the small group inside the grav-lift.

"This grav-stuff is weird, like pixie dust…" Vern commented, before he began rising.

Frank began to rise as well, followed by the other five marines.

"Maybe it is pixie dust!" Frank shouted, laughing. "Just think happy thoughts."

Master Chief wasn't rising. He thought happy thoughts: _Pretty ponies and unicorns prancing around a field of daisies on a sunny day, while I frolic in the flowers…_

Suddenly his feet were no longer touching the ground. He looked up and saw that he was getting closer to the Covenant ship.

"To infinity and beyond!" Master Chief shouted, placing one hand stiffly to his side and lifting the other over his head, trying to imitate Superman. "Up, up, and AWAY!!"


	5. Aboard The Truth And Reconciliation

**5. Aboard The Truth And Reconciliation**

**1800 Hours**

When Master Chief opened his eyes he was inside of the strange alien vessel, the _Truth And Reconciliation_.

"We're in," Cortana said. "I've got a really good lock on the Captain's CNI transponder… no Covenant defenses detected."

Master Chief looked around. There was a Wraith in the room that they were in. A marine started muttering something about there not being any Covenant.

A door opened and Master Chief saw a glowy-blue thing floating in the air. He walked towards it, when it ran past him. He saw it slash at a marine, who shouted and fell to the ground.

Master Chief fired at the blue thing, and a Elite appeared and fell dead.

More doors opened and Grunts and Jackals appeared.

"No Covenant," Frank muttered, as he shot down a Grunt. "You had to open your mouth."

An invisible Elite came up behind a marine and slashed at him, just as a Grunt behind it stuck it. The Elite blew up, and Master Chief sniped the Grunt. He noticed he was running out of ammo for his S2 AM sniper rifle, so he switched to his MA5B assault rifle.

He ran through a pair of doors, mowing down a bunch of Grunts, searching for some plasma grenades. He never found any.

"That's the way to do it!" Vern congratulated

"Leave some for me!" a marine complained.

Master Chief went to the center of the room, and saw another glowy-blue thing in the air and opened fire.

The Elite stopped dead a foot away from Master Chief and fell. Two plasma grenades bounced to him.

"Sweetness!" Master Chief exclaimed picking them up as a plasma round flew over his head.

Another invisible Elite came up and killed another marine. Now there were was only Master Chief, Vern, Frank, and another marine remaining—until that marine stepped on a plasma grenade and was blown across the room.

A pair of blast doors opened and two Hunters marched through.

"Do what you do best, Hunter Hunter," Vern said, getting cover behind a pile of crates.

Master Chief pulled out his S2 AM again and sniped both Hunters.

Frank lead the way toward the way the Hunters had come from, but they came to a dead end.

"The door's locked, John," Frank told him. "There's no way through."

"We can use the side doors to get around," Cortana told Master Chief.

Vern volunteered Master Chief to go around and open the door from the other side.

So Master Chief turned around and went back the way they came from. He turned right and went through one of the pair of doors. It slid open and made a weird warning bell like sound.

Master Chief backed up and let the doors close so he could hear them again. It was funny sounding. He did it three more times before Cortana told him to stop and continue on.

He went up a slope and came to an intersection. He spotted the orange armor of a Grunt in contrast to the purple colored walls. He prepped his MA5B to overload on that lone Grunt.

"HOOAH!" he shouted, exhausting an entire clip before ceasing fire.

Advancing forward, Master Chief spotted two red dots on his pie—motion tracker, I meant. He stopped dead in his tracks as a Major Elite ran out in front of him.

It ducked behind a corner, and Master Chief hurled a plasma grenade at it. The grenade stuck to the Elite and it shouted "NO!" before the bomb promptly exploded.

"Ah! The Devil!" a Grunt screamed after looking in the direction of Master Chief.

Master Chief didn't look behind him to check to see if the Devil really was behind him. He ran forward, adrenaline pumping through him. He rushed pass the Grunts, and came to a door.

It opened and he was an overhead step walk that was in another hanger. He stopped when he saw two Elites and two Jackals in front of him. Priming a plasma grenade, he threw them just as he ducked behind a pile of crates. The blast sent the Covenant soldiers flying off the step walk and down below.

He was about to step out when Cortana stopped him.

"Wait."

"Simon says…"

"Simon says, wait," Cortana said impatiently. Numbers popped onto his HUD. "The marines are behind that door. The controls for the door must be somewhere in this room."

"And I should find them… right?"

"Correct."

Master Chief walked on, killed a couple more Jackals, Grunts and Elites, then found himself on the lower floor of the second hanger. He ran to the control panel that was marked by the numbers. He tapped it like he had to activate the energy bridge a while ago.

Frank and Vern were on the other side of the door and fired on the fresh Covenant soldiers that had arrived in the hanger.

"Alright everybody, stay cool," Vern said. "Yell if you see anything."

Master Chief saw some more numbers appear on his HUD. He followed them and went through another door.

"This way guys," he said, holding his MA5B in front of him.

He looked left when he reached an intersection, then right, the back to left.

"This way," he said, going left.

"How can you be sure?" Frank asked, following directly behind him. "Unless you've been on a Covie ship, I'm sure you're lost."

"I am not…" Master Chief protested. "I just have… a sense of… direction."

Master Chief came to the end of the intersection and turned right where he saw two Jackals.

"Yup," he said, priming a plasma grenade. "This is the right way."

The Jackals were blown away, and Master Chief charged forward.

"I see them!" Frank shouted.

"Now don't get cocky!" Vern warned.

In a matter of seconds all the Covenant in that corridor were lying in a pool of blue blood.

Master Chief went on, making sure that all of the Covenant were dead when a Grunt jumped out in front of him.

"Ah!" he shouted. "Another—"

Master Chief shot him down with half a clip.

"Clear!" he shouted to Frank and Vern.

He continued and came into an actual hangar with a fork-shaped dropship leaving the hangar. Four Grunts cried and ran off.

"Up there!" Frank pointed at a Elite that was up high on the second story.

Master Chief fired an entire clip at the Elite, and missed him all four times.

"Dam'mit," he muttered, reloading the magazine. "I'll get him next time."

He fired at the Elite and missed the first time. The second time he clipped the Elite, and missed the next two shots. He reloaded his S2 AM again.

"You gonna hit somethin' sometime soon, _Chief_?" Vern asked.

"It's John," Master Chief gritted his teeth and prepared to fire again.

Spotting the Elite hidden behind a crate, Master Chief aimed at a shoulder that stuck out, and pulled the trigger. The Elite collapsed.

"Target down," Master Chief grinned.

"With nine shots from a sniper rifle," Vern noted, then brushed pass Master Chief. "Great job."

They entered the hangar and immediately Covenant soldier appeared out of nowhere. Master Chief tossed grenades everywhere, Vern asked all the Covenant if they wanted a piece of him, and Frank hid in a corner.

In the end, the marines conquered over the Covenant soldiers.

"Now what?" Frank asked them; peeking out of the corner he was in. "All the doors are locked."

"Hold on," Cortana told them. "I'll open a door and—viola! A door is opened."

A door did open, revealing two more Hunters.

"HUNTER HUNTER!" Vern cried out, running pass Master Chief.

Master Chief switched his weapons and aimed his S2 AM—_click._

A Hunter charged at Frank, who screamed for Master Chief.

"Hold yer hosses," Master Chief said cowboy-ish-like. "I'm reloadin' my gun. Play with the guy a bit."

The Hunter tossed Frank around, as if playing a game of cat-and-mouse.

Master Chief finally slapped a new clip in and fired at the Hunter. If fell on top of Frank.

Meanwhile the second Hunter was running after Vern, until Master Chief shot it down.

"Finally!" Vern sighed with relief. "And I thought you were gonna let us die."

"No today," Master Chief said, placing one foot on top of the felled Hunter. "For the Master Chief will live on another day."

"Whatever," Frank muttered. "Get this Hunter off of me, and let's find the Captain."

It took both Master Chief and Vern's strength to lift the dead Hunter off of Frank. After Frank stood up and looked over his blood-covered battle uniform he swore.

"And I just had this washed."

"Let's move out," Vern said, heading toward the door the Hunters came through. "I don't want to be here when more Covenant come."

The door was locked.

"I got another one opened," Cortana announced. "Everyone should move through the door before it closes. I can't guarantee that it won't lock when it does."

Frank went first, followed by Vern, and the rear was brought up by Master Chief. Frank stopped suddenly, then opened fire at a pair of Grunts.

"They're not so tough after all," he stated, before he ran into a Major Elite.

The Elite shouted, and shot his plasma rifle. Frank threw a frag grenade at it, and it dodged the grenade and ran into a corridor. Frank primed another grenade and tossed it against the wall. The remains of the Elite stuck to the wall.

They reached a door that opened into the second story of the hangar. Cortana called in for more support troops. When they arrived Master Chief saw Sergeant Avery Johnson again.

"Hey, it's the par-tay guy," Sergeant Johnson said, smiling at Master Chief.

"It's John, remember?"

"No. I don't. Let's go."

They went through a door and opened fire at the Covenant that were behind the door. The Covenant couldn't hold up a effective resistance, and were quickly dispatched.

"And don't bother getting up!" a marine shouted.

They continued till they reached the third story of the hangar. There was a couple of Covenant soldiers there, but Sergeant Johnson and his marines took them out while Frank, Vern, and Master Chief stayed behind.

The door opened behind them as a Jackal and three Grunts came through the door. Frank and Vern shot at them while Master Chief primed a plasma grenade—he was fond of those fuzzy blue things. When he was about to throw it, he noticed that all the Covenant soldiers were already dead, so he tossed it behind him. Sticking a Elite.

The Elite was blown over the edge of the third-floor all the way to the first-floor.

"Nice throw," Vern commented.

They went on, with Sergeant Johnson leading the way, and that's when strange aquatic music began playing in his head.

"This is different music," Master Chief said to Cortana. "But I like it."

"Don't get used to it."

He came to an intersection, and looked left. There were some bodies that were dead, by a pile of weapons and a health pack. Master Chief went over and picked up as much as he could.

"John," Sergeant Johnson said. "You better get over here and use that weapon of yours."

"Which one?" Master Chief asked, coming up to the Sergeant, who was standing by a door.

"That sniper rifle. There's a lot of Covies in this room. Snipe all of the Elites that you can see."

"Yes, sir!"

"Shh! Not so loud," Sergeant Johnson put a finger to his lips. "The baby's sleeping."

Master Chief hefted the sniper rifle against his shoulder and looked through the scope. The first thing he noticed were the sleeping Grunts. _Oh, that's what he meant when the baby's sleeping, _Master Chief thought to himself. That's when he noticed the gold armor clad Elite. _Pretty armor; I wish I had gold armor._

He pulled the trigger, and the gold Elite's shield flickered, but didn't go off. It looked around, and Master Chief pulled the trigger again. The Elite fell down dead.

"One down," Master Chief said to the others behind him.

"And the baby's awake," Sergeant Johnson told him.

A Minor Elite came running out, and Master Chief sniped his head.

"Two down!"

"Cover fire!" a marine shouted, shooting his MA5B at the Grunts scrambling around.

A Major Elite came running up to the marines, and Master Chief shot him as well.

"Three down, sir!"

"Keep up the good work, and make your old man proud."

"My what?!"

"Your father."

"Oh," Master Chief contemplated this thought. _Where is my family?_ He wondered.

"Covies down!" a marine shouted proudly. "They weren't so tough after all."

"The Captain is close," Cortana told Master Chief.

"Okay," those numbers appeared in his HUD. "I'll go get them."

Master Chief, Sergeant Johnson, Frank, and Vern all went through the door while the other marines remained in the room on this elevated sentry post, where that gold Elite was standing on.

They turned left when they reached the first intersection and walked quite a ways down, before turning left again.

Three Grunts were patrolling those halls, and it so happened that they came around the corner at the same time. Sergeant Johnson lobbed a plasma grenade at the middle one and ordered everyone back.

The grenade went off and all those Grunts were dead. Sergeant Johnson told them to continue. They turned right into a second patrol, this time there were Jackals. Sergeant Johnson tossed a grenade between the two and ordered everyone back.

This time, Master Chief stayed behind. _If Sergeant Johnson_ _is just gonna order everyone back. I'll just stay back here and wait_.

Sergeant Johnson ordered everyone to advance, but Master Chief remained where he was.

"Is there something the matter, Chief?" he asked.

"No. I'll just wait."

"Wait for what?"

"Until you stop ordering us back, then forward. Make up your mind."

"I'm tryin' to protect you, son."

"You're definitely not my dad!"

"It's a military figure of speech."

"Oh."

"Now, get your butt up here."

Sergeant Johnson led them left, then right. It seemed like it went on forever, a winding maze that no one would ever come out alive from. But Sergeant Johnson seemed to know the way.

Eventually they came to a wide open door that showed a prison. There were Grunts sleeping all around and a lone gold Elite near the controls for the prison doors.

"Snipe him, John." Frank whispered to Master Chief.

Master Chief put the S2 AM to his shoulder and fired two shots. The gold Elite fell, and the Grunts remained sleeping.

"Why are they still awake?" he asked.

"They didn't hear you shoot the gun."

"I heard it loud and clear. It made a—_kabow!_—sound."

Master Chief really emphasized the _kabow!_ And that woke the Grunts up.

"Brilliant," Vern muttered, and shot them down.

It looked like the room was clear, but Master Chief saw some moving haze in the air. It was strange looking.

"What's that?" he pointed at the moving haze.

"Shoot it!" Frank told him.

"Why?"

"Because that's what I do to things that look weird."

"Okay."

Master Chief shot, and a Elite appeared. But it clutched it's groin, where Master Chief had fired, and cried as it fell dead.

"Hooah!" Frank cried. "He ain't gonna be havin' no more kids!"

"He's dead," Master Chief told him. "Of course he's not gonna have any more kids."

A second haze appeared above the dead Elite, and Master Chief sniped it as well. They waited another five minutes, just in case any more Elites came out. There were none.

"Go press a button on that panel," Sergeant Johnson told Master Chief.

Master Chief pressed the button and Sergeant Johnson helped Captain Keyes up. He had a bandage over his head, where Master Chief had shot him.

"Coming here was reckless," he told them. "You shouldn't have come. Marines!" he shouted. "Get your weapons locked and loaded. I wanna be ready to move."

"Yes, sir!" the marines shouted in unison.

Captain Keyes picked up a needler, and then began to tell them how he eavesdropped the guards and heard them talking about a 'ring world.' After he argued with Cortana for some time Captain Keyes turned to Master Chief.

"Master Chief, I have a new job for you. Go find the control panel for the Halo. Marines!"

"Yes, sir!" the marines shouted.

"Chief, you have point."


	6. Shut Up And Get Behind Me…

**Author's Note: **I must thank all of you readers again. This story probably wouldn't have gotten this far if not for the reviews and enormous amounts of hits in such a sort amount of time (like... less than three weeks). This chapter is a little short, but don't get distraught. Chapter 7, The Silent Cartographer, is going to be the best chapter yet! Thank you again for reading and the reviews.

**6. Shut Up And Get Behind Me…**

**1959 Hours**

The doors opened by themselves.

"Invisible Elites!" Frank warned.

Master Chief opened fire, and randomly hit one of the Elite's. The Elite fell, while the other hidden Elite tried running past Master Chief.

But it didn't get that far, for the marines and Captain Keyes shot it down.

"Nice shot," a marine commented.

"Let's keep going," Captain Keyes said.

Master Chief walked through the door and there was a Jackal. They shot it down along with a second Jackal. Master Chief didn't remember which way he was supposed to go next. But the direction was chosen when a Grunt, to the left, fired at him.

He led the marines and Captain Keyes that way, and Master Chief tossed a grenade.

"Hey, nice throw," Vern said just before it went off.

"BOOM!" a marine shouted when the grenade went off.

"Yes, nice job. Now get going!" Captain Keyes demanded.

Master Chief continued and they arrived at the room where the marines stayed behind. On the other side of the room where two partially invisible Elites were carrying their energy swords. Master Chief switched to his S2 AM sniper rifle.

He sniped one of them in the face. The second one turned around and saw the first one lying dead on the ground. He went over to investigate—and got his head sniped.

"Clear!" Master Chief informed the others, and he stepped into the room.

"We made it!" Cortana exclaimed, as if she were a sailor who just reached land after months of being on a ship.

She called for extraction as Master Chief looked for the marines they left behind. He found them—sliced open on the elevated sentry thing. He took their grenades.

"Negative Cortana!" the pilot replied. "I've been engaged by Covenant air patrols, and I'm having a tough time shakin' them. You'll be better off finding your own ride. Sorry."

"Acknowledged. Cortana out," Cortana said. "Air support is cut off, Captain. We need to hold here until she can move in."

"Oh great!" Vern cried. "We're trapped here! We're screwed!"

"Would you like to be?" Frank asked.

There was an awkward moment of silence.

Then Captain Keyes began talking. "Stow that bellyachin', soldier. Remember you're a leather neck. Cortana, if you and the Chief can get me one of those Covenant dropships, I can fly us out of here."

"Yes, Captain. There's still a Covenant dropship still docked."

The doors surrounded them opened, and Grunt ran out of them, wildly shooting their plasma pistols and needlers. Master Chief held down the bead for his MA5B and wildly shot at them as well as the other marines.

In a matter of seconds all the Grunts were down. Master Chief led the marines out of the room and back into the corridor, where the strange numbers appeared again in his HUD for the third time that day. Or was it the fourth?

They didn't meet any Covenant resistance on their way back to the hangar. When the doors parted there were two Grunts and a Minor Elite. The strange numbers pointed to a vertical looking shield that looked like a control panel.

"Tap that!" Sergeant Johnson shouted as he shot at a Grunt.

"On it!" Master Chief jumped into a dive, and sprung to his feet just in front of the panel.

He tapped it—

And nothing happened.

He tapped it again—

And still nothing happened.

He looked back at Captain Keyes, and shrugged. "I guess it's broken."

Frank shoved Master Chief over and slammed the butt of his MA5B against it. "Work!"

"That's it!" Cortana congratulated Frank. "The dropship is loose."

"Everybody, mount up. Let's get on board," Captain Keyes said, hopping into the pilot's seat of the fork-shaped dropship. Master Chief took a seat next to Vern and Sergeant Johnson. He folded his arms and glared at Frank. He was jealous. He rescued all of the people that were in the dropship, and no one thanked him. He tapped the panel—twice—and Frank ended up with all the glory.

"Captain, Hunters!" Cortana cried out.

"We got the Hunter Hunter," Vern suggested.

"Hang on," Captain Keyes told everyone. He piloted the dropship in the direction of the Hunters, and ran them over.

"Nice one, sir!" a marine shouted.

"Time for a little payback," Captain Keyes said as he turned the dropship and blasted out of the _Truth and Reconciliation_.


	7. The Silent Cartographer

**Author's Note: **Well, here it is, The Silent Cartographer. I hope I made this first section of the level interesting, funny, but I still hope it will keep you reading until the end of Halo: Combat Devolved. If you have any ideas for later levels, send me a PM or add it in a review, and I'll try to use it for the level. Thank you for reading, and all the reviews!

**7. The Silent Cartographer**

**0800 Hours**

Two days later, Master Chief sat aboard a Pelican with Frank and Vern on his side. Frank had since then asked for an apology to Master Chief and Master Chief accepted the apology. A second Pelican also flanked the Pelican Master Chief was aboard.

Master Chief looked out at the clear blue water and it made him wan to strip right in front of everyone and dive right in.

Cortana coughed to get his attention.

"The Covenant believes that what they call the Silent Cartographer is underground. The island has multiple structures and installations. One of them contains the map room."

The Pelican landed right next to a massive swarm of Covenant soldiers, who immediately began to fire upon the Pelicans.

"Go! Go! GO!" Vern called out as they hopped out of the Pelican.

The officers had taken Master Chief's S2 AM sniper rifle away and replaced it with his old M6D pistol. He was disappointed, but he soon regained his confidence with the pistol again.

He shot at some Grunts who tried dodging the bullets like the Elites, but failed. After he dropped five Grunts, he switched to his MA5B assault rifle.

The squad of marines that had been aboard both of the Pelicans ran through the Covenant soldiers quickly. After surviving the first volley, a second group of Covenant forces behind a structure appeared.

"Catch!" a marine shouted, lopping a M9 grenade in that general direction.

Master Chief ran for the grenade, trying to catch it. He even dived for it, but it fell out of his reach, and exploded behind a large rock.

"Area secured," a marine said into his COM. "All hostiles taken care of."

"Affirmative," a female Pelican pilot replied. "Echo-four-nineteen inbound. Did someone order a Warthog?"

"No," Master Chief said to the pilot. "I ordered a cheese pizza, with pepperoni and sausage toppings, with a side dish of bread sticks."

"Hey," Frank shouted. "I didn't know you made house calls!"

"You know our motto: We deliver!"

"We get it free if you take longer than thirty minutes!" Master Chief reminded her, he checked his watch. She had only a minute left.

A Pelican appeared in the horizon. _Fifty-five seconds_.

It approached their position and slowed down. _Forty-seconds_.

It began its descent. _Thirty-two seconds._

The Warthog was detached. _Twenty-five seconds_.

It rose. _Twenty seconds._

It flew off. _Fifteen seconds._

It disappeared behind the cliffs. _Time is up!_

"Is there pizza?" Master Chief asked the marines who were nearest to the Warthog.

"No… should there be?" Frank asked.

"Dam'mit! I ordered pizza, and now it's late. I guess I get it free."

"You got the keys; so shut up and drive!" Vern said aloud, his head bouncing up and down.

"What?" Master Chief asked, as he hopped into the driver's seat.

Vern removed the headphones in his ears. "You say something? I'm listening to my favorite song right now, and I don't like to be disturbed when I'm listening to it."

"What song?"

"Shut up and drive."

"I won't drive until you tell me what song you're listening too."

"Shut up and drive!" Vern irately said.

"You said that already—"

"That's the name of the song," Vern told him, replacing the headphones. "It's by Rihanna."

"Oh," Master Chief started the Warthog.

"Okay, let's move out!" Cortana said to Master Chief. "Let's go find the map room that will show us the way to Halo's center."

"You got it… um… lady." Master Chief still didn't remember her name, he leaned over to Vern. "What's her name again?" he whispered.

Vern didn't respond. His eyes were closed and he shouted: "SHUT UP AND DRIVE!"

Master Chief stepped on the gas pedal and the Warthog jerked. He looked down, and saw the stick-shift. "Crap."

"What is it this time?" Frank asked, looking down from the mounted gun.

"It's stick-shift."

"Don't ask me. I don't know how."

"Me neither."

"Well, try your hardest to learn."

The Warthog stalled five more times before Master Chief got it to move. It wasn't long until the Warthog began growling loudly, more loudly than it used to.

Vern looked at Master Chief. "Shift!"

"What did you just say?"

"I said 'Shift!'"

"Are you using cuss words?"

"Put it the clutch!" Vern indicated by pointing to the pedal on the far left. "And shift down to second."

Master Chief did as he was instructed and the loud growling stopped. Until a couple of seconds later. Vern told him how to shift, and everything else about manual vehicles as Master Chief zoomed past a squad of Covenant soldiers, running over a Major Elite on the way through.

There was a cliff up ahead, and Master Chief swerved to miss it, but hit a boulder instead. The Warthog came to a jerky stop. Ahead of them was a bunch of Elites.

"LET'S GET 'EM!" Frank shouted, as Vern cheered in agreement. Master Chief floored the pedal, and the Warthog stalled.

The Covenant turned and saw them. Frank opened fire from where the Warthog was stopped. He dropped an Elite and two Grunts within five seconds.

Master Chief finally jerked the car forward, but before long he had it running smoothly.

He drove it toward the strange structure that stuck out of the cliff, where there was a ledge. There was an opening on the sides and from the front. Master Chief chose the front entrance.

Three Major Elites stood in the hallway, and they had one second to decide what to do. Two of them stood there in surprise, and got run over by the Warthog. The last one ducked into a corner. Master Chief tried to turn, but the Warthog got stuck between two corners.

The Major Elite was trapped in front of them. It made an angry roaring sound, and Vern intimated it with a weak sounding roar.

Frank opened fire at the trapped Elite, and in a moment, the Elite's mangled body was slumped against the wall, whatever blood and organs were still in its body flowed out onto the ground.

"The Silent Cartographer must be here!" Cortana exclaimed. "Let's keep going."

Master Chief put the Warthog in reverse and backed up.

Vern looked at Master Chief. "Uh, John… don't you think the 'hog is a bit for these halls?"

"Nah," Frank laughed. "John can get through anything."

Master Chief drove deeper into the building; the walls on either side of the Warthog appeared to grow closer together, as if they wanted to crush them alive. They came out into a small opening.

"Don't let them lock that door!" Cortana cried.

Master Chief looked to his left and saw several Grunts, a Minor Elite, and one of those gold Elites in the doorway. He chucked a grenade at the closing door. The grenade got past the closing doors, and he saw through the glass that it exploded.

They shot down the other Covenant. Master Chief ran to the door.

"It's locked," Cortana breathed a deep sigh.

"We could knock," Master Chief suggested. "Or say 'Open Sesame.'"

"I doubt that will work," Vern shrugged his shoulders.

They all got back into the Warthog and Master Chief drove it back to the entrance. He accidentally drove the Warthog to the ledge, and Vern saw the unmistakable color of a Jackal shield below.

"Jackals!" he shouted, and pointed down to the ground below. "Get 'em John!"

Master Chief swallowed the lump in his throat and drove off the cliff.

The Warthog hit the ground, hood first. This ejected everyone out, before it flipped forward. The Jackals hadn't noticed them yet, so they took up positions around the Jackals before they fired upon them.

When they were dead, Master Chief, Frank, and Vern pushed the Warthog back up. They got into their respective places in the vehicle before Master Chief continued driving down the beach.

It wasn't long before he saw the form of a up turned Warthog ahead. He slowed down; maybe there were marines that needed help.

But to his chagrin, there _were_ marines—but just dead marines. Frank opened fire with the mounted turret to Master Chief's left. Master Chief looked and saw a blockade made by fallen trees and Covenant forces behind them.

He tapped Vern on the shoulder. "Let's flip the other Warthog, and then mount that gun!" he suggested.

Vern nodded and they both hopped out of the Warthog.

Master Chief and Vern flipped over the other Warthog, and Vern hopped onto the mounted gun. Master Chief moved the Warthog closer to one side of the blockade, then hopped out and went to the first Warthog.

He drove that up closer to the other side of the blockade as well, forming a small blockade of his own against the Covenant. With Frank and Vern operating at the mounted guns, the Covenant couldn't even fire a aimed shot at them.

After all the Covenant soldiers were dead, Frank suggested that Master Chief should return to the LZ and pick up more marines for backup. He hopped off of the mounted gun and allowed Master Chief to drive alone to pick up the other marines.

Master Chief came up to the first strange structure that he had seen and there were three marines there, standing around. Two of them hopped into the car, leaving one lone marine.

Master Chief drove the Warthog back to where Frank and Vern were waiting. They cheered with excitement at the site of more marines.

"Let's go!" Frank shouted as Master Chief hopped out of the Warthog and climbed into the other.

There was a tree up ahead that was as thick as a—um…—thick tree. The Warthog revved before it shot out like a bullet, running over three Grunts that were ahead. There were several more Grunts and Elites up ahead as well.

Frank fired the mounted gun while Vern fired his assault rifle. Master Chief remained seated in the driver's seat, trying to remain calm.

When those soldiers were dead, Master Chief continued driving. Two massive red dots appeared in his motion detector. "What do you think that could be?" he asked aloud.

"What?"

"My round circular thing is showing me two big dots just around this corner."

They came past a cliff, and saw two Hunters.

"Oh, crap!" Vern cried as the Hunters heated their weapons. "SHUT UP, AND DRIVE!"

"That's by…" Master Chief thought a moment. "Rihanna!"

"No," Frank said, firing his mounted gun at the Hunters. "I think he means, put the pedal to the floor and punch it out of here!"

The rear tires spun for a second then the Warthog shot forward, and Master Chief swerved to the right, toward the strange structure the Hunters were walking around. He drove up next to them, and ran one over. It cried out in pain and anger, before it stopped moving. Master Chief did the same for the next one.

Vern laughed and cried out loud, "WHOO! The Hunter Hunter strikes again!"

"Hooah!" Frank shouted.

_YES! A HOOAH!_ Master Chief happily thought in his head.

"Let's go get some more of them Covies!" Vern shouted.

Master Chief stepped on the pedal, remembering to shift when he needed to. Frank began firing the mounted gun as Master Chief ran over three Jackals in a row. He continued forward and came to a rocky crevice between two cliffs. But he made it through and they came to an edge of a cliff. There were several Grunts running around by them.

Vern and Frank fired their guns as fast as they could, so that the Grunts couldn't prime any plasma grenades and chuck it at the Warthog. Master Chief hopped out, careful not to fall over the edge of the cliff.

He fired his MA5B at the Grunts, and it wasn't long until they were all dead.

"Let's go!" Frank said, hopping out of the Warthog.

They ran into the structure that was on the cliff. Master Chief was point, and when he turned the first corner, he saw a Grunt holding a plasma grenade.

The Grunt tossed it at Master Chief, and stuck him in the crotch.

Master Chief stared at it.

Frank stared at it.

Vern stared at it.

Heck, even the Grunt stared at it.

—and waited. The blue fuzzy looking grenade remained fizzing and sparkling but never went off.

The Grunt got a "wha the?" before Frank bashed its head against the wall.

Vern laughed out loud, so did Frank. Master Chief didn't see anything funny about it.

"What? What's so funny?" he asked.

"You've got stuck by a dud plasma grenade," Vern laughed, hunched over with his hands on his knees.

"Hooah!" Frank cried. "Never seen that one before!"

Master Chief shook his head. "Well, what are we gonna do?"

Vern shrugged. "Leave it for all I know. And don't touch it; it will stick to whatever body part it touches…" then he realized where it was stuck at and burst out laughing again.

"Not funny!" Master Chief cried continuing on, walking down a sloped decline. He turned left and came to a room full of purple Covenant crates.

He went in, and checked everything out while Frank and Vern stood behind the entryway, still sniggering.

"All clear," Master Chief told them.

As Frank and Vern stepped into the room, two Hunters stepped out of hiding.

The Hunters hadn't detected them, so Master Chief got two clear shots of the Hunters. Both fell down dead.

"You're getting better at this," Vern said, walking up to Master Chief. "If you keep this up, you'll have your own Holo show. I see it now," he stretched his arm out and moved it outward. "The Hunter Hunter on Discovered Channel."

"Sweetness," Master Chief said, looking out into the distance.

"Yeah, get your sweet butt up ahead, and continue on," Frank muttered.

Master Chief led them on, and came to a long corridor. There was something moving up ahead that he didn't recognize. It looked like a hologram, or something. He wanted to touch it.

"Race you to it!" He shouted, running ahead.

"Oh, no you don't!" Vern shouted, joining in the race.

Master Chief won.

The hologram was a weird looking thing; it had little round things with symbols moving up and down the main section that had cylindrical features to it. He continued to watch it with Vern, until Frank came up.

"Yeah, real cool." Frank muttered, hitting the control panel. "Let's get this stuff done and get outta here… this place gives me the creeps."


	8. It's Quiet

**Author's Note: **Another 'short' chapter, sorry it's taken me forever to put it on. Summer break just started, so hopefully I'll have more time to write. Thanks for reading.

* * *

**8. It's Quiet**

**0952 Hours**

Master Chief looked around. He couldn't figure out which way he had come from.

"This way," Frank said, taking point and leading the way.

Master Chief and Vern followed Frank back down the long corridor when a distress COM came from a Pelican pilot. Cortana urged them to keep moving after all three had stopped to listen to the man cry.

Frank came to the intersection and looked around. "It's quiet… too quiet," he whispered.

Master Chief thought he heard a step, but when he listened harder, he couldn't hear anything but the heartbeat of his own heart. And that's when he saw the shimmer in the air.

"There!" he shouted.

The shimmer disappeared by the time Frank and Vern looked in the direction that Master Chief pointed. Master Chief shook his head. Did he just imagine seeing that shimmer? He saw a translucent Elite in the light, run across the room ahead.

"Elites!" he hissed to Frank, pointing in the general direction that the Elite had gone to.

Frank shook his head. "Stay here; I'll go check it out."

Frank went out into the large room where the two Hunters lay in a blood of orange blood. His hands were shaking, as he tried to hold his MA5B steady. Master Chief could see beads of sweat running down his neck and into his battle uniform. He also saw a shimmer appear right behind Frank.

"FRANK!" he shouted. "LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU!"—and fired.

The Elite staggered when Master Chief shot its right calf, which gave Frank enough time to swing the butt of his MA5B around and smash the Elite's head. The Elite fell down unconscious, and Frank continued to smash its head.

Vern gave a short scream, and Frank and Master Chief turned around to see Vern on the ground, another translucent Elite standing above him kicking him in the ribs.

Master Chief started running. He propelled himself at the Elite by jumping off the body of a Hunter, tackling it to the ground The Elite growled, its mandibles open. Vern got up; snatching Master Chief's M6D and fired twice into its mouth. Brains and blood spattered everywhere.

"And stay down!" Vern twirled the pistol in his hand like a Western Cowboy, then handed Master Chief back his gun.

"Any more of—"

A explosion came from behind them, where Frank was. Frank gave a holler, as an Elite came flying over Master Chief and Vern's heads. It hit the wall and collapsed to the ground.

Frank led them to the door before turning right, going up a sloped ramp, then he turned left and climbed into the waiting Warthog. Master Chief took the passenger's side seat, which left Vern standing there in surprise.

"Hey! Wait a second," he began to protest. "Aren't I supposed to be sitting shotgun?"

"Nope," Master Chief said quickly. "You know how to drive stick-shift, so you're gonna drive."

"All I said was that I know how to shift the stick, not drive."

"What?!" Frank demanded. "How is that possible?"  
"Who knows? That's how it was written out to be." Vern looked up into the sky, balled fists raised as high as he could. "WHY ME?!"

Somewhere, back on Earth, five hundred and forty-four years ago, someone burst out laughing. Master Chief reluctantly complied to drive, and Vern took his usual spot up front.

Below them was a crashed Pelican surrounded by Covenant forces. Cortana began talking to Master Chief.

"Chief, Bravo-22 was bringing us heavy weapons. After I saw that we were up against Hunters, I figured you could use them." There was a hint of strange hopefulness in her voice that made Master Chief nervous. "Let's move down the beach. Keep an eye out for any cargo we can savage."

Master Chief gunned the pedal, released the clutch, and the Warthog jerked forward off the cliff and did a complete flip in mid air. It hit the ground upside down, ejecting Master Chief, Frank, and Vern. There was a second Warthog beside them where two marines manned the turret and passenger side seat. There was a third Warthog that was tipped over on its side. Marines lay dead all over the place.

"Holy cow," Vern muttered as they flipped their Warthog over. "The crash must've been fatal."

Suddenly it was quiet, and the other marines stopped firing their weapons. Master Chief investigated the crashed Pelican and found a weapon he'd never seen before. It was long and tube-like. The lettering SPNKr was written on it as well as M41 SSM MAV/AW.

"Ohh!" Master Chief admired the weapon and picked it up and tried to say the word. "Spunker," he said with a guttural sounding voice. "That's a weird word." Then he saw the picture of a man holding the same rocket launcher on it as well as well as the words above and below it: ATTENTION; HOLD LIKE THIS. "Ohh! That's how they use them. I've always wondered what would happen if they held it the other way." He saw some more words on it which said: CAUTION: SELF TEST. Then there was a little green button below that that said: TEST.

"Why in the word would I want to self test it on myself?" Master Chief said to himself as he flipped the rocket launcher backwards and pressed the test button. There was a loud BAM! as a rocket fired from the front which was the back of the SPNKr rocket launcher. There was a big blast as the rocket collided with the second Warthog sending the other marines flying out of the vehicle. The second Warthog flipped and turned until it came to a complete stop when it hit a tree.

"Does it work?!" Master Chief asked, staggering to get back up. The force of the rocket launcher had sent him sprawling on the ground face first.

Vern nodded his eyes wide open. "Yeah… it works all right."

"Good. Let's get going," Master Chief said getting into the Warthog and driving on, heading right. He drove past the place where he had put up the blockade earlier that morning, and up a hill.

When they reached the top of the hill, three Jackals stood there. Master Chief looked for a horn on the Warthog to warn them to get out of the way, but he couldn't find one anywhere on the car, so he ran them over.

"Hey, Hunter hunter, you might wanna get over there and take care of those Hunters," Vern said, indicating to Master Chief the two Hunters that stood watch at the weird structure.

"I got this," Master Chief said, stepping on the accelerator and jerking the Warthog forward. He nudged one Hunter over the edge of the structure, and crushed one against the cliff. That's when he noticed the hole in the cliff. "LOOK! There's a hole in the cliff!" he exclaimed, pointing to the hole.

"I don't see anything," Frank said looking in the direction that Master Chief pointed to. "Let's just get inside this place.

Master Chief shrugged his shoulders, backed up the Warthog, and drove inside.

He went down the sloping stairway, and down a second one, into the room where the door had once been locked. Now it was wide open.

Driving on, he tried to get through the door. The Warthog was to fat to get through. Master Chief hopped out of the Warthog and went through the door.

"I'll be right back!" he said, walking through a short hallway, and turned right.


	9. Shafted

**Author's Note: **Thank you for all for being patient for this chapter and everything. As my profile says: All stories on hold; that is because I just started working at the YMCA as a lifeguard and it's taking up a ton of my time. Ugh... that and my Eagle Scout Project. So here is Chapter 9. I'm not sure when Chapter 10 will even be started, and I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

**9. Shafted**

**1001 Hours**

Master Chief walked out through an open doorway, swinging his arms back and forth, twirling his M6D pistol around his index finger. He kept walking but then came to the edge of a platform. He casually kicked a stone over the edge and the looked.

That was a mistake.

He screamed like a girl.

Meanwhile, Frank and Vern heard the most spine-chilling scream in their life. They remained at the Warthog and looked around.

"What do ya think that is?" Vern asked, clutching the Indian necklace around his neck.

"I dunno," Frank muttered moving the armament of the Warthog around in circles. "But if it comes over here, I'm gonna fill it so full of—"

"Hey!" Vern shouted. "Now the screaming stopped; n_ow_ it's cussing… and saying our names."

"John." They said at the same time.

"HOLD ON!" Frank hollered as he jumped off of the Warthog and went in the direction that Master Chief had gone. Vern did likewise and found Master Chief standing on a platform staring down into the void.

Master Chief didn't see them but he heard them come in. "Hurry guys. Get me away from here."

Vern and Frank took a hold of his shoulder armor and began to pull back. "Why the heck are you staring over a drop off?" Frank asked, as they pulled Master Chief back through the open doorway.

They set up down gently and Master Chief took several heavy breaths before he could respond.

"I… saw some… stones… that I wanted… to kick over," he breathed.

Vern raised his brows. "Wow…"

"Let's go," Frank said, hefting Master Chief up to his feet. "This way."

Frank led the way down the opposite direction and they came up behind an Elite. Frank crept closer to it quietly and bashed its head against some purple crate.

"Let's go up those stairs," he said, pointing to the sloped ramp thing that was to their right. He led them up there and dropped a Grunt with his pistol.

Frank dropped a couple more Grunts, a Jackal, and a Elite. After the Covenant forces were all dead, he led them onward down another sloping ramp and they found a hatch that led them down another ramp. Frank peeked through the now open hatch, and looked back at Master Chief and Vern.

"You might wanna stick to the wall John," he said. "There's another drop."

"'k, thanks." Master Chief said.

They went through the hatch, with Master Chief hugging the wall. It took them a while before they reached another hatch. Frank went in and stopped.

"Hunters…" he whispered. "At your ten o'clock."

"Actually it's just after ten o'clock," Master Chief said. "About five minute after."

"Whatever. Get your rocket launcher out. You're gonna blow them to bits."

"Sweet!" Master Chief switched his pistol for the rocket launcher. Hefted it up onto his shoulders, took aim at the nearest Hunter and fired.

The rocket zoomed through the window frame and struck the unsuspecting Hunter with such a force, it _was_ blown to pieces.

"WHOO WOO!" Vern shouted.

"Hooah!" Frank exclaimed.

"GWARH!" another Hunter bellowed, after seeing its partner get blown to pieces.

"Fire again!" Vern cried.

Master Chief fiddled with the rocket launcher again then fired. The Hunter tried to get away from the rocket, but it was blasted away from the explosion that it was killed anyway. A couple of Jackals came running up to them. Frank and Vern both primed grenades and chucked them at them.

"Fire in the hole!" Frank shouted as they ducked back into the hatch. It closed a split-second before the grenades exploded.

"This way!" Vern led the way through the room and to another slope. There was another drop off, so Master Chief stuck to the wall as they went down.

Cortana began talking to the pilot of a Pelican. Covenant reinforcements were coming in. She told them to hurry.

They began running as fast as they could. Plasma fire streaked behind Master Chief as he tried to keep up with Frank, who, when he was younger, had been on track and was the fastest running in the state he lived in. Frank led them over some suspended bridge and down it.

He turned left and then right. There were a couple of Covenant soldiers in that direction. Frank primed a plasma grenade that he picked up from a dead Grunt, and threw it as hard as he could at the Elite standing in front of them. It struck the Elite's shoulder and blew it and two other Grunts over the edge of the overhang.

"Let's go!" he shouted, firing his MA5B at the Grunts.

Master Chief ran past him and came to a dead end. He turned around. "Hey, I think we took a wrong turn…"

"Nah," Vern said, turning towards the wall. "There's an entrance right here."

Master Chief blinked. He hadn't seen the entrance before.

"Hey, where's that rocket launcher of yours?" Vern asked, peering into the room.

"Here," Master Chief handed Vern the rocket launcher.

Vern put it up on his shoulder, took aim at an unknown target, and fired. Two roars were heard before the loud explosion.

"I dub myself, the Elite hunter."

"Yeah, yeah," Frank said, brushing past Vern. "So I guess that makes me either the Grunt hunter, or the Jackal hunter."

"No; you can be the Brute hunter."

"Brute?" Master Chief asked. He had never seen one of those before.

"Oh wait," Vern said, clasping his hand over his mouth. "You're not supposed to know about those until Halo 2… my bad." He looked around. "Well, let's follow Frank!"

Vern turned and went into the room. There was a hologram of the Halo ring in the center. Master Chief saw two blasted Elites further away in the room.

"Analyzing," Cortana said, as the image of the Halo began to break open. "The Halo control center can be found there."

"Where's there?" Master Chief asked.

"Will you just be quiet and listen?!" she snapped.

"What was that?" Master Chief folded his arms.

"I said, 'Will you just be…'" she realized what he was referring to and gave a loud sigh. "Simon says for you to be quiet and listen."

He became silent, but he didn't listen. Finally Frank sounded the order to move out. They went back the way they came, and didn't meet up with any Covenant until they came to one the 'stair' wells.

Three Jackals appear at the top of them and began firing. Vern tossed a grenade up it and they were blown away. Purple splatters of blood covered the wall.

"Let's go!" Frank hollered, running up the stairs. He came to a hatch and opened it.

Through the hatch was a squad of Jackals standing all over the room. Frank and Vern both had MA5Bs and they opened sprays of fire on the unsuspecting Covenant soldiers, meanwhile, Master Chief carried his SPNKr rocket launcher and a M6D pistol on his hip.

"Don't fire that rocket launcher unless told to, John." Vern ordered, tearing up a Jackal's stomach with his heavy barrage of automatic fire from his assault rifle. "We have enough dead heroes as it is!"

So Master Chief remained behind the two marines while they racked up kills. It took Frank and Vern five minutes before the room was entire clear of live Covenant forces. The walls and floors were covered in Jackal blood, while their corpses littered the place.

Frank slapped a fresh clip into his MA5B. "What did I say not even seven minutes ago? Let's go!"

He went through a hatch which came to one of the massive sloping stair rooms where Master Chief clung to the wall. He warned Master Chief, and continued forward. He hadn't taken two steps when several Jackals, flanked two Hunters stepped onto the slope at the top.

"CRAP, HUNTERS!" Frank cried turning around.

The big weapons that the Hunters carried started to glow a bright green while Jackal's suppressed heavy plasma fire. Master Chief took a step back when the Hunters fired. The blast from their weapons was misaimed, and it exploded on the Jackals, sending them flying over the edge and down to the depths below.

With their backs up against the wall, Vern looked at Master Chief. "John. I think it's safe to say you can use that rocket launcher of yours. No sweat man. Just remember: if that blast from their guns hit you… you're fried."

Master Chief swallowed and stepped out from the wall, his hands shaking as he reloaded the rocket launcher. The two Hunters on top growled and began charging their guns. Master Chief shoved a pair of rockets into the rocket launcher and fired.

One Hunter was thrown over the edge, while the other one was blasted backwards. Vern hollered out Master Chief's nickname, while Frank shouted "Hooah!"

They were near the entrance of the Silent Cartographer, and Covenant forces were increasing. But they didn't meet up with any more Hunters. Eventually Master Chief became walking point leading them to safety with his trusty SPNKr rocket launcher in hand. He didn't bother to tell Frank or Vern he only had one rocket remaining.

He turned the corner of a dark corridor and was face-to-face with a gold-plated Elite. The Elite activated his energy sword while Master Chief fired his last rocket. The shields of the Elite flickered, but remained intact. Master Chief turned around and ran.

Frank chucked a plasma grenade at the Elite and followed Master Chief, with Vern directly behind him. They didn't know if the grenade stuck or not, but in a few seconds the Elite howled as the grenade exploded.

"That… was… close." Master Chief breathed heavily, trying to regain the breath he lost running.

"Too… close." Vern looked at his pants. Somehow the Elite had managed to slice a bit of the buttocks section, revealing Vern's heart covered boxers. "Oh… you guys weren't supposed to see that."

Master Chief switched to his M6D, and let Frank lead the way out. They went up the remaining slopes. Their Warthog was at the top of the last slope, turned on its side.

"Cortana to Echo four-nineteen," Cortana hailed a Pelican pilot. "The Master Chief and I are topside, requesting pick-up."

"And Frank and Vern," Frank muttered.

"Roger. On my way," a female replied.

"Why is it always a female?" Vern questioned, as they flipped the Warthog over.

"Because females always become pilots and males become marines," Frank grunted as the Warthog flipped onto all four wheels. "It's always like that in books, games, and whatever things that have military stuff. Females are quick and smart, males are strong and dumb."

"I never knew that," Vern said getting into the passenger's side seat while Frank got onto the turret.

"Looks like I'm driving," Master Chief muttered, getting into the driver's seat and backing out.

They had barely gotten out of the structure when a Pelican flew into view. Jackals were on their right, firing plasma all over the place.

"Move!" Frank shouted, jumping off of the back of the Warthog and running to the Pelican.

Master Chief and Vern followed behind Frank, jumping in.

"Punch it!" Frank hollered up to the cockpit. The pilot nodded and the Pelican lifted off.

Cortana gave the pilot the coordinates to the next destination that they were going to. Master Chief felt something inside him, telling him that whatever was coming next probably involved shooting something.

"Uh, Cortana," the pilot argued. "These coordinates are underground."

Something inside Master Chief dropped like a stone.


	10. I Would've Been Your Daddy

**Author's Note: **Hooha! Finally another new chapter to my Combat Devolved fans after several months of waiting. I'm really sorry everyone. I haven't been able to write as much as I used to. I started my senior year and that's taken a lot of my time away. For those who's been to my FictionPress account, you've seen that I haven't updated my story Intersteller for a long time. Thats because its going through a rewrite. So sorry there as well. I hope this chapter keeps you happy till I can finish the next one... sigh...

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**10. I Would've Been Your Daddy…**

**1031 Hours**

"That's as far as I can go," Master Chief heard the pilot announce over the intercom.

"Roger that," Cortana replied.

Master Chief opened his eyes finally and saw a semi circular catwalk. The Pelican began to descend and Frank nudged him. "Ready?" he asked, snapping a fresh magazine into his MA5B.

"No." Master Chief whimpered. He grabbed the collar of Franks and pulled in close to whisper in his ear. "I have another confession to make… I'm claustrophobic…"

Frank's blank expression made Master Chief tilt his head.

"Did I say something that offended you?" he asked.

Shaking his head, Frank unbuckled himself from the jumpseat and got up. "No, it's just that I'm not sure how you made it through combat training…"

"Me either," Master Chief jumped up from his jumpseat. "But I'm sure am happy I didn't." They both looked out of the ramp.

"Good luck," the pilot sounded skeptical. "Foehammer out."

"Wha'? Wait!" Master Chief tried to persist, but Vern pushed him out of the way. Master Chief stumbled on the catwalk and watched as the Pelican dusted off and descended deeper into the cylindrical room. He glared at Vern. "Thanks a lot…"

"Hey," Vern shrugged and started to walk towards a lonely hatch. "I would've been your daddy."

Just then, the hatch hummed and opened. Standing in the doorway was a Elite clad in the maroon-ish red armor. It roared loudly and shook its head violently.

"Yeah, yeah… I've seen it all," Vern muttered as he held down the bead of his assault rifle. The Elite's head exploded and splattered purple blood and brain tissue against the wall. The five Grunts standing behind him squeaked and retreated down the tight corridor. "HEY!" Vern shouted, chasing after them and still empting his MA5B of ammunition. "Get back here so I can mow you down!"

Frank looked at Master Chief and sighed. "I guess we better go after him, just in case Mr. Unhurt runs into a Hunter."

They stepped over the mangled body of the dead Elite and went through the hatch, which closed over the Elite with a gruesome crunch. They turned left no sooner had they entered, then took a right, followed again by another left and right.

"My gosh," Master Chief panted through his helmet. "Why couldn't the people that built these halls just make them straight? It'd be much more cheaper, save time, and it'd be good for the environment."

Frank shrugged as the sound of automatic gunfire and Vern swearing loudly echoed through the corridor. "See? What'd I tell ya?"

They ran into the octagonal room where an Elite lay on the ground, it's abdomen completely shredded into pieces. Master Chief cringed as a grenade went off.

"Jackals at one o'clock," warned Frank over their COM. "Careful."

"Got 'em," replied Master Chief as he charged at them, swinging his M6D left and right, smashing the Jackal's temples into their skulls. They collapsed to the floor quickly in a pool of blood.

Vern jumped out in front of Master Chief and shouted, "BOO!"

Master Chief nearly screamed at the top of his lungs as he shot at Vern. The bullet rushed past Vern's head, clipping a single strand of hair and ricocheted off the wall behind him.

"Did you just?" Vern stammered and jerked his head around to look at the small hole in the wall. "Did you just miss me from one foot away?" he asked glancing back at Master Chief.

"I'm so sorry!" Master Chief cried. "I didn't mean to. It just happened all of a sudden."

Frank appeared behind Master Chief's shoulder. "You didn't mean to what; shoot at Vern, or miss him?"

"Uh…" Master Chief thought a moment. "Yeah…"

"The Covenant presence is stronger than I anticipated," Cortana randomly announced. "They seem to have the entire region secure."

"You mean there's gonna be more?" Master Chief sighed. "And I thought there was a lot of Covenant on _The Pillar of Autumn_."

"Heh, that was nothing," Frank stepped through the hatch and looked back over his shoulder at the other two. "Did I ever tell you about the time I was stationed on Reach?

They took a left, followed by a right turn, and then there was a towering hatch in front of them. Frank went first through the hatch and it led outside, where there was—

"SNOW!" Master Chief exclaimed, pushing Vern out of the way and running to the hatch.

Frank caught Master Chief's wrist and held up a finger to his lips, which he hoped Master Chief would catch on to be silent. Just the same, he whispered, "Shhh!" And standing in front of them was a sleeping Grunt.

Master Chief guffawed to himself. "Whad'dya gonna do with him?" He whispered back.

Holding his MA5B, so the butt was poised above the Grunt's ugly head, Frank swung the assault rifle down and crushed its skull. It didn't utter a word as it fell dead. Master Chief had to plug his nose to keep himself from laughing out loud.

"Go get the rest," Frank muttered, walking towards another sleeping Grunt.

Master Chief went to the next Grunt then he saw that they were standing on a high walkway. He grinned to himself and quickly snatched the Grunt in his hands and threw him over the edge. He heard the faint squeak of a Grunt falling through the air.

Very happy with himself, Master Chief went to another Grunt and swung his MA5B like a golf club. The side of the assault rifle slapped against the environmental suit of the Grunt with a loud bang. The back portion blew off and exploded suddenly. Frank spun around and looked at Master Chief, who was standing beside the burnt corpse of a Grunt, holding his MA5B upside down and high in the air, as if he had clipped a wonderful swing.

"FOUR!" Master Chief hollered just as a big blue plasma round blew up beside him. His head searched the sky for the source of the plasma and saw a Banshee flying towards them. He dropped his arms to his side and ran back towards the hatch, with Frank right behind him.

A male's voice cried out from over the COM. "This is fire team Zulu requesting immediate help from any UNSC forces. Does anyone copy? Over."

Cortana sounded surprised. "I didn't think there was any more human forces on this part of the ring." She linked onto the Battlenet frequency. "Cortana to fire team Zulu, I read you," then she added, "Fire team Zulu, this is Cortana, we're on our way."

There was brief moment of static, then, "Roger that, make it quick."

The Banshee turned tail and began firing upon a Pelican that flew over the walkway. Master Chief climbed up onto the Shade turret and began pumping plasma at the alien aircraft. It changed its course and flew directly at him, preparing a plasma bomb.

"John," Frank screamed, trying to pull Master Chief off the turret. "Fall back!"

An Elite appeared in front of them and laughed just as the Banshee exploded. The pilot inside of the Banshee free-fell until he hit the ground, bounced back up and over the ledge of the walkway. The Elite saw the burning body and turned just about the same time the Banshee crashed, front first into the Elite.

"SWEETNESS!" Master Chief shouted for joy as he jumped to his feet and punched both of his fists into the air. "Got 'em; all me."

"HOOHA!" Frank exclaimed, slapping Master Chief's armored arm in congratulations. "That's the way to do it John!"

Vern peered out of the hatchway. "Is it clear? Is it safe?"

Frank grabbed Vern's arm and yanked him out. "Course its okay. We got John on our side. Now let's get down there and help that fire team Zulu out."

They took off down the walkway, where they encountered a couple more Grunts and Jackals. When they were nearly to the hatch Master Chief saw something he recognized; a gold armor plated Elite.

"RUN!" Vern squealed as he nearly stumbled around to start running back the way they came.

However, Frank chucked a grenade at the Elite, which stuck to its sword-arm. The Elite glared down at his arm, made a loud growl before the grenade exploded, sending the Elite sprawling over the edge and down to the ground fall below.

"Hooha! One Elite down for me," Frank held up his index finger. "Four more to go…" his voice faltered as he looked around. "Where's John?"

Vern stopped running and scoped the place. "Uh-oh… think he was blown over the edge too?"

They both peered over the edge. It was far to long of a way down to tell the twisted shapes from human to alien.

"Nah," Frank shook his head as he began searching for Master Chief. "If he had, we would've heard him."

"Hey-loo?!" they heard John's voice sing out below them. They looked at each other, each had an eyebrow raised. "Is there anyone up there? I'm down here… on the landing below you!"

They both let out a loud breath as they glanced down through the shattered glass and saw Master Chief waving. "How do I get up there?" he asked.

"I'll get him," Frank muttered as he left Vern standing alone on the top walkway. He went down the ramp and found Master Chief, alive and well. They went back up and went through the next hatch and through the windy corridors. Eventually they arrived at another hatch.

"Careful," warned Frank. "I got a feeling that something we might not like might be on the other side of this hatch."

Vern nodded, as did Master Chief, although a little reluctant. They stepped closer to the hatch, Frank first, followed by Master Chief, then Vern brought up the rear. The hatch parted and opened, granting them entrance.

Frank looked about the entry and didn't see anything suspicious so he took another step and saw a Grunt disappear behind a wall. He pointed over there, which told the others that he had seen a contact, before he took a couple more steps and looked into the main room. There was complete silence, and Master Chief could hear the sound of his own heartbeat. Suddenly Frank pulled the trigger of his M6D, which he held steady in his hand. The muzzle flashed and the bullet found its target; an invisible Elite.

The alien didn't utter one sound as it collapsed to its knees and keeled over sideways. Grunts screamed and pointed at the dead Elite, unbeknownst to them that there were three UNSC soldiers in the same room. Frank smirked at the other two and nodded, holstering his M6D at his side and withdrew his assault rifle.

The other two did likewise and waited for Frank to finish his three second countdown. When he got to one, all three of them stood up and opened a relentless salvo of automatic gunfire.

Master Chief ran down the left side of the room, laughing his head off as he ran past Grunts, shooting them down and bashing their skulls. He found some dead bodies of UNSC marines and a couple of frag grenades. He snatched those up, as well as some ammunition for his pistol, which was running low.

There was a loud reverberating boom behind him as a shower of debris from the wall fell on him. He turned around and saw a Hunter charging at him.

Quickly, at a record speed of a half a split-second, Master Chief had exchanged his MA5B to his M6D pistol and fired a single bullet through the back of the Hunter. As it fell, Master Chief remembered something. Usually when there was one Hunter, there was usually a second—

"HUNTER!" Vern cried. "JOHN!!"

Master Chief sprinted for the rescue of his companions and ran into the main room where a Hunter was charging at the cowering marine. Master Chief let out four shots with his pistol, each one found their target and the Hunter fell.

"Wheew!" Vern got up and wiped his brow. "And I thought I was gonna die." He went over to the Hunter and began shooting at its weak spot with his MA5B, causing the orange fluid to splatter everywhere. "How ya like that, huh punk?! You don't get anywhere against the Hunter hunter."

"Let's just keep on going," Frank muttered and they left the room. A couple of minutes later they found themselves on an elevator. Master Chief was about to press the button to the main floor (ground-level) when Frank tapped the lowest one. He looked at the marine and huffed. Frank shrugged. "We're going down."

"Now that sounded wrong," Vern commented.

Frank looked at Vern. "You sounded wrong."

"You sounded—"

The sound of buttons being pressed caught their attention. They both looked over at Master Chief, who was pressing every button on the elevator.

"Ohh… crap," was the only word that Frank could find to say that was appropriate for this story.

When he was finished, Master Chief took a step back and admired what he had done. "Doesn't it look great? It kind looks like a… like a… like a…"

"Like a long boring ride down an elevator…" Vern sighed as he sat down on the ground and began muttering.

"Ohh… c'mon," Frank tried to sound optimistic. "At least we have each other…"—Master Chief looked at him—"… still…"—Vern looked up and shook his head—"I'll shut up now," Frank smiled, hoping that the other two would forget he even said that.

Two hours, and who knows how many stops later, they arrived on the bottom floor and they stepped off the elevator. It wasn't long before they found themselves outside, where the ground was covered in snow. No sooner had they been outside a large blue plasma mortar flew overhead and crashed someplace to their right.

"That must be where those other marines are at," Frank suggested. They ran off in that direction, ready for fight with their comrades to the end.

They reached the camp where three more marines fought with everything thing they had, including Covenant weapons. But for some reason, they left a rocket launcher and sniper rifle lying in the snow. Master Chief gladly traded his weapons for them.

Master Chief made sure that there was a rocket inside the SPNKr rocket launcher before he fired a rocket at a Ghost flying in his direction. The rocket blasted out of the end of the rocket launcher and struck the snow-covered hill in front of the Ghost, the explosion caused it to flip backwards and crash on top of the Elite. The three other marines that were there turned and cheered, just as a plasma mortar crashed into the trees above them.

Frank pulled up in a Warthog and told Master Chief to get in. Vern was sitting on the passenger's side seat, fiddling with his iPod, so Master Chief climbed up onto the back of the Warthog. He tried to find the seat belt to strap him to the turret so he wouldn't fall out, but he couldn't find one.

"Oh crap," Vern muttered, as he put his headphones into his ears. "I got less than 20 percent battery life left on my iPod… I knew I shoulda charged it last night…"

Frank revved the car and it shot forward across the snowy field. Seconds later they were approaching a large blue bulb. It turned to face them before it fired a fiery hot plasma mortar in their direction. Frank barely had time to swerve out of the shell's path and slid across ice that the bulb hovered. The blast shook the ground so much that Master Chief lost his grip on the turret's handlebars and landed in a bank of snow.

He climbed out, brushing the snow off his armor so it wouldn't rust. Then he picked up his weapons, putting the S2 AM sniper rifle on his back and hefting the SPNKr rocket launcher on his right shoulder. He aimed it at the Wraith and fired off two rockets. They found their target and exploded. The force of the blast sent Master Chief flying back into the snow bank.

He didn't know how long it was till Frank and Vern pulled up to the snow in the Warthog with the other three marines. But they eventually sat him up and began checking to see if he was alive.

"John!" he heard someone say, probably Frank. "John! JOHN! Are you OK?"

"Course he's all right," he heard someone else say. He was one hundred percent sure that this one was Frank. "It's the Hunter hunter."

Now Master Chief was confused. Frank wasn't too concerned about his wellbeing, but he never called him Hunter hunter, that was Vern. But Vern was the one who was concerned about his wellbeing. He opened his eyes, but everything was black. He shook his head and moaned.

"Dude… that hurt," he said, as he got to his feet. "Where's mom?"

"What the heck is he talking about?" he heard a marine ask.

The black finally brightened and Master Chief found himself staring at Frank. "Hey, man, did my pizza ever arrive?"

Frank slapped his shoulder and chuckled. "Yup, he's fine. Mount up. There's some more marines not that far from here. We need to rendezvous with them."

Master Chief stumbled over to the Warthog and got onto the driver's side. He checked the blinkers and side view mirrors before starting the vehicle. They went over a little ledge and landed on some ice. The Warthog slided across the ice, while Master Chief steering right. Ahead of them was a Scorpion tank, a downed Pelican and several marines shooting at some Covenant soldiers.

"Go! GO! GO!" Frank urged, as he began to shoot at the Covies with the turret.

There were three more marines here, and several Grunts and Elites had pinned them down. Master Chief drove over the hill that the marines were stuck on, and splattered several Covenant. Vern cheered as his favorite song came on his iPod.

It didn't take long to wipe out the rest of the Covenant soldiers there, with the death of only one marine. When the area was secure, Master Chief hopped out of the Warthog and climbed into the Scorpion. He had always wanted to drive one of those. He admired the control panel, which no one's ever seen before.

Four marines, including Frank and Vern climbed up on the side of the Scorpion while the other three got into the Warthog.

"Lets go wipe out s'more Covies!" Frank hollered. "HOO-HA!"

It took Master Chief a second to figure out how to move forward, but before long he was leading the group through a tunnel. At the end of the tunnel Cortana hailed him. "The Covenant placed their tanks to defend the entrance to the tunnel."

Master Chief turned left and went around a cliff edge and blew up a Ghost approaching them. The Covenant Wraith was to their right and it fired a fiery hot plasma mortar at them. It missed of course, so Master Chief fired a rocket shell at it and got a direct hit. When he tried to fire another shot, the computer told him it was reloading. The Wraith got another round off before Master Chief could fire again. But it missed again, but hit a Ghost coming in behind them. When Master Chief fired again, the shell hit the Wraith and it exploded in flames.

"That armor wasn't so tough after all," Vern mocked. "Now let's mop up the rest of them."

Two seconds later the Covenant blockade of Shade turrets and Ghosts were piles of strewn wreckage and metal and Master Chief and the driver of the Warthog had complete access to the entrance of the tunnel. As they went down the sloping entrance, two Hunters came running up. Master Chief fired off a shell and it blew them away.

Suddenly a green plasma bomb whizzed past the Scorpion and exploded not far from them. Master Chief turned the tank around and saw a Banshee flying directly at them. He aimed and fired. The Banshee blew up in a ball of fire and crashed on the ground.

At the bottom of the entrance, a blast door had been closed shut. Master Chief hopped out of the Scorpion, tapped the panel to unlock the door, then climbed back into the Scorpion. Continuing forward, Master Chief turned right, then left, then right again as they went deeper and deeper into the tunnel.

'Why don't they just make it straight?' He wondered as they came up on two unsuspecting Covenant Elites sentries. He fired a rocket and they went flying over the edge of the walkway ahead.

As he entered the massive domed enclosure, the marines in the Warthog rushed past him and drove across a bridge to the left, the marine on the turret brought down several Jackals and Grunts. But what the driver didn't expect was to see two Hunters waiting at the end of the bridge with their massive guns charged. The massive beasts fired and blasted the Warthog over the edge of the bridge and down into the void below.

Master Chief was riding up behind them, and the second the Warthog was out of the scene, he fired a shell at them and they fell to the ground. Driving a tank was so much fun, Master Chief decided that he wouldn't never ever want to drive a Warthog ever again.

They reached another shut door, so Master Chief hopped out the Scorpion once more and tapped the panel. The door opened up and they went through. And to his dismay, the tunnel turned right, then left, then right again.


	11. Rolling Thunder

**Author's Note: **It has been a long while and I really hope I haven't lost my readers. If I have I'm SUPER SORRY. But here is Chapter 11. Enjoy. Reviews are most welcome.

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**11. Rolling Thunder**

**1258 Hours**

As they turned right Master Chief spotted a Grunt sleeping on the side of the pathway. He turned the turret of the Scorpion and was about to fire a shell at it when Frank opened fire and the Grunt sprung to its feet and ran further into the cavern.

Master Chief directed the tank right and went straight on into a small Covenant scouting party. He was glad that he hadn't wasted a shot at the Grunt as he fired the shell at the party. The blast sent the two Elites bouncing against the walls as well as several Grunts.

"Nice job!" a Marine cheered as Master Chief shot down a retreating Grunt down with the auto-turret.

They turned left and an incline leading up above ground appeared in front of them. There were several rocks and oval lights scattered throughout the hill, which Master Chief recognized as Jackal shields. He aimed the long turret each one and fired, sending the Jackal's flying.

"Leave some for me, huh?" the Marine muttered as Master Chief swerved around the large rocks.

Ahead, at the mouth of the cave a Covenant drop ship began to descend. Master Chief aimed and fired a shell at it. No sooner had it landed it dusted off and disappeared into the incoming fog. At the top of the hill the cave ended and Master Chief spotted two Elites waiting in Ghosts. He fired at them and sent them spinning wildly out of control. Two small parties consisting of Jackals and Grunts flanked the sides of the Scorpion, but in seconds, the snow was covered in the purple and blue blood of the aliens.

In front of them was a tower that was surrounded by rock. Master Chief went around its right side. Some Grunts and a Elite peeked out of a hatch that led into the tower and they were greeted by a shell to the face. Master Chief hopped out of the Scorpion to equip himself with the ammunition of a dead Marine.

"Uhhh… Master Ch–John!" Frank called out from his frozen seat on the side of the Scorpion. "There's a Ghost and a Wraith ahead!"

Master Chief glanced over his shoulder as he reloaded his M19 SSM SPNKr rocket launcher and saw the lone Ghost moving in their direction. He sprinted for the Scorpion and jumped into the driver's seat and in a second fired a rocket at the Ghost. It missed and struck against the cliff wall behind the Wraith. The Ghost, now alerted, zoomed toward the marines. Master Chief fired as soon as he could, and hit the front of the Ghost. The Wraith couldn't pinpoint the source of the firing, and Master Chief got two shots off before it exploded in flames.

"Woo! Class is dismissed," a Marine shouted.

"This was a class?" Master Chief asked, looking at the Marine. "What kinda class is this?"

"Um… Covenant War 101?" the Marine suggested, shrugging his shoulders.

"Strange… I didn't hear a bell ring, so let's just keep going," Master Chief stepped on the accelerator and they moved forward.

There was a large boulder ahead at their right and two Hunters jumped out behind it. Master Chief fired a shell at one of them as they primed their massive guns. They fired a shot as a Ghost ramped off the top of the Scorpion.

The marines shouted in surprise as Master Chief tried to reload the turret of the Scorpion as the Ghost landed and spun around to fire at them. John naturally stepped on the reverse and moved backward as the tank notified him that it was reloaded, he fired and blasted the Ghost away. When the small battle was over Master Chief moved around the boulder and they found some Grunts and Jackals at the cliffs edge of a ravine. He fired a new shell at them and sent them flying as some Covenant soldiers ahead of them spotted the tank. Master Chief fired at them and sent the remaining Grunts scurrying for cover.

"Someone's on fire," Vern rooted.

That's when Master Chief saw some green dots on his Motion Tracker. They were at the bottom of the canyon. He drove the Scorpion down the slope and found five more marines. They pointed at him and shouted for joy.

"I thought the Covenant had eliminated all marine forces in this part," Cortana contemplated as the Marines hopped onto the Scorpion.

"Well, sometimes it's all right to admit that you're wrong," Master Chief encouraged her.

"Covenant drop ship!" a Marine shouted, pointed to the cloudy sky. Master Chief stepped on the gas and plowed over two Hunters.

The drop ship fired at them as Master Chief was forced to stop at the entrance to another cave. Two pillars blocked their way so they all got off of the Scorpion and hid in the protection of the walls. Master Chief heard a snarl behind him and he spun around holding his rocket launcher. He didn't see anything except several lights that marked the path. Then one of the lights moved and he heard a Elite growl.

It was a split second decision. Shoot the invisible Elite or get sliced in half. He chose the first option. The rocket blasted the Elite back five feet where its unbroken bones shattered against the impact of hitting a rock.

They went up and over a small precipice, but before they reached the top Frank stopped them.

"John," he said, looking at the Master Chief. "Hand me that rocket launcher. I'm gonna go up there and see what damage I can do before the enemy knows we're here. When you get the heads-up I want everyone to charge across the field shooting assault rifles." He gave everyone two thumbs up and took the SPNKr rocket launcher, hefted it onto his shoulder and climbed up.

Frank snuck past a couple of Grunts without alerting them and stood on top of a high mound all the way to the left of the field. There were at least six Elites with Ghosts and way at the other side of the field was an Elite standing beside a Banshee. He aimed and fired at the Banshee then gave the marines he left behind the A-OK.

The marines jumped up from their hiding place, assault rifles blazing. The group of Grunts that Frank passed was mowed down as well as an Elite. Frank reloaded the rocket launcher just in time to see a Ghost zooming toward the marines. He took aim once more and fired in front of the Ghost, sending it spinning and flying into the air, which ejected the pilot.

He heard the familiar sound of S2 AM sniper rifles and saw Master Chief and another marine both firing their own weapon. It took ten seconds for the field to be cleared of Covenant forces and they headed toward a hatch that led inside of the cliff. As they neared the door, it opened on its own accord and let two Elites out. The Elites stood there for a second, surprised by the army of marines. Master Chief stepped forward and held up a hand.

"We come in peace," he said deeply.

"Nah," Frank said, firing the last rocket at the two Elites. They didn't have any time to react and the rocket exploded on impact.

"Why'd you do that?" asked Master Chief, as he turned to John who was tossing the SPNKr rocket launcher away behind him. "They would've joined up with us."

"No they wouldn't have. Elites are on the Covenant's side. The day I fight along side an Elite is the day I go back to Earth. It ain't gonna happen."

"It could," Master Chief muttered as he went to the door. "I think they're kinda cool lookin' with their shiny armor, and ant-like faces hidden under awesome helmets. And they got four fingers! That's cool too. And how their necks curve forward instead of upward…" his voice trailed off as he realized he was the only one that had even approached the door. "Guys?" he asked, looking behind him. "You comin' in?"

"Cortana called in a Pelican. We're getting out of here," a marine informed Master Chief. "Have fun with your alien friends though."

"Frank? Vern?" Master Chief said, his feelings hurt that none of the marines wanted to follow him anymore. "You guys gonna come?"

Vern shrugged. "Sure. I wouldn't mind going against Bungie and Microsoft's programming. And while we're at it, how about we take that Banshee up to those walkways way up there since we like to save time."

No one understood what Vern just said, but Master Chief nodded anyway. "Sounds great. C'mon Frank, you can ride on the other side of the Banshee to balance it out."

They ran over to the Banshee and climbed on with Master Chief at the controls. "How do you fly this thing? There aren't any instructions and everything is in alien format."

"Just do what you always do," Frank suggested.

Master Chief pressed his hand on the panel made for a hand and the Banshee rose. He pressed another one and it moved forward. "Oh, that's easy," he smiled and crashed the Banshee against the face of the cliff. He backed out and flew upward till he landed on one of the bridges. They hopped off the Banshee and walked through the closest hatch.

After traveling some more lefts and rights, they reached the next hatch that led them deeper in the cave. That didn't sound right to Master Chief, but he shrugged and kicked the door open, ready for battle.

"Ow." He cringed as a stinging pain shot up his leg and spine. "I don't think these doors were made to be kicked open."

Frank pursed his lips and shook his head. "No. They weren't."

Through the hatch there wasn't anything in there, as far as Master Chief could tell. Frank took point and swept his gun back and forth as he scouted ahead. He went left. There was a creepy noise in the room, and it frightened Master Chief. He could've sworn he heard someone growling next to his ear. He jumped five feet in the air when he heard something hiss behind him and saw that it was just the hatch closing.

They continued to go left, not seeing any Covenant in the room at all. They saw some dry blood on the ground, but it was red. So there had been human forces in that room at one point in time…

Passing through the room with no incident, they came to a long corridor. Master Chief clung to the wall, fear racking his insides. "I'm not going through there," he cried. "It's creepy enough I haven't shot at a single Grunt in the past five minutes. They're just gonna jump out at us, I just know it!"

"Well, I'm not going down there first," Vern crossed his arms. "You go first Frank."

Frank shook his head. "Not uh! I've been point too long. It's your turn."

They continued to argue and dared each other to go first. Eventually Frank suggested that they all go down the corridor together, arms linked together.

So all three of them locked arms together and ran as fast as they could through the corridor, screaming at the top of their lungs and keeping their eyes shut tight. They reached the side without running into any Covenant.

Frank broke the chain and growled, "You know what I think? I think that the Covies are too frightened to fight us now so they've given up, yeah?"

They walked on and came to a locked door. Master Chief beat on it a couple of times with his gun, but nothing happened.

"You know what I think now?" Frank asked, "I think that Bungie and Microsoft expected that some idiot would be able to skip through part of the level, like we did, and just go on to some later part so they locked the doors. Now we gotta go back through the creepy rooms and do everything all over again!"

Master Chief stepped forward to offer his own opinion, which he always thought was the best idea. "Why don't you two ever try saying, 'Open Sesame?'"

Frank and Vern both looked at Master Chief and scoffed. "Oh c'mon, John," Frank said dubiously. "That old saying never, ever, works."

"What? Open sesame?" Master Chief knocked on the hatch with the butt of his M6D.

And the door slid open.

"Be careful," Vern warned as they moved forward, out into the cold snowy weather. "It could be a trap."

Frank, of course, took point and stepped out first. He swept the air and shook his head. "Nope, nothing."

Master Chief went out and was followed behind by Vern. Frank suddenly stopped and pointed in front of them where a Elite was on patrol. He raised his AM S2 sniper rifle and pulled the trigger. The Elite crumbled on the ground, purple blood swelling on the ground from his head.

They continued on but suddenly something large and green blew up on the ground in front of them. Master Chief glanced to his right and saw two Hunters on the other bridge.

"Step aside," he said, puffing up his chest and lifting his sniper rifle to his shoulder. He took aim at the closest Hunter and fired. It collapsed without a sound. The second one growled and started firing rapid plasma shots at Master Chief, and all Master Chief could do was fire random shots at the Hunter's armor.

Minutes passed and the Hunter still hadn't fallen but more Covenant soldiers began to appear in front of them. Frank and Vern took cover behind a half-wall while Master Chief continued to shoot at the Hunter. Then, unexpectedly the sniper rifle clicked. He reached down to his belt to load another clip of 14.5mm x 114 Armor-Piercing, Fin-Stabilized, Discarding Sabot ammunition, but much to his chagrin he was out.

"Fr-Frank…" Master Chief stammered as the Hunter charged up his plasma cannon and aimed it at the group of three.

"Yeah?!" Frank shouted in a loud voice as he swung his MA5B back and forth, the violent bead of lead mowed down the Grunts in front of him.

"I'm… I'm… out of ammo and the uh… Hunter isn't happy."

Frank turned around and saw the angry Hunter. He grabbed Vern's shoulder, shoved him over in the process and yanked him to his feet. "RUN!" He shouted as they ran forward. Master Chief felt the air warm behind him as the hot molten plasma smashed against the half-wall they were behind seconds before. They kept running until they neared the door which opened by itself.

There was a roar in front of them, but Master Chief couldn't see anything. But Frank must have, because he unloaded an entire clip of his MA5B into a haze which after it crumbled into a heap was revealed to be an invisible Elite.

"Strange," Master Chief blinked at the dead alien. "I could not have predicted this… bummer."

"HURRY!" Frank shouted as he jumped over the dead Elite and slid to safety. Vern followed behind and Master Chief brought up the rear. When the door finally closed behind them they continued through the door and back into the never-ending maze. Frank gave a woot and wiped the sweat from his brow. "Well, let's keep going," he slapped a fresh magazine back into his MA5B. He started to step forward but stopped and turned around. "How much ammo do you guys have left?"

Vern checked his ammunition and looking grim he said, "Two hundred for my assault rifle and less than ten on my pistol."

Frank faced Master Chief. "And you, John?"

"Umm…" he released the clip from his S2 AM sniper rifle and said, "Four… plus nineteen… equals…. Ummm….—"

"—twenty-three?" Vern suggested.

"Twenty-three rounds total for my sniper rifle. And twelve… plus fifty…" He scratched his helmet.

Vern spoke up again. "Sixty-five?"

"Sixty-two," Master Chief finished. "Sixty-two rounds total for my pistol."

"Wait… I thought you said you were out of sniper ammo," Frank put his hands on his hips.

"I found some more."

"Great." Frank grabbed John's arm and pulled him in front of him. "Then you lead this time."

"What?"

"John, please. It's easy. And it helps with leadership skills too. So how about you get your big butt moving." Frank pushed him forward.

Master Chief shouldered his S2 AM sniper rifle and held his pistol with both hands as he took point. The tunnel went left, right, left and then right once more before they arrived at a door that slid upwards no sooner had they turned the corner. Master Chief switched to his sniper rifle and stepped cautiously forward. On his Motion Tracker he saw two red dots on his left.

He peeked his head out into the open and saw two Jackals with their back to him. He switched back to the pistol. He leveled the gun and fired. The closest Jackal collapsed to the ground and the furthest one jumped in surprise. Frank shot and the other Jackal fell right next to the first one.

Suddenly Master Chief's Motion Tracker was flooded with red dots rushing toward their location. He faced the direction of the nearest dot, but nothing came into view. He took a few steps and saw a couple of Grunts. In a couple of shots, the Grunts were down in their blue blood.

Still leading, Master Chief went around the room and found the way to continue through the maze. Frank was next in line and Vern brought up the rear. They went down a slope and walked around an intrusion in the ground and went back up another slope.

"Well, that was a waste of our time," Vern commented as they turned right.

"Shh…" Frank slapped Vern on the back of the head. Ahead of them a long hallway stretched out, and what made it odd were the two blue Energy swords that hovered in the air. "John," he whispered. "Snipe them."

Master Chief switched back to his S2 AM and aimed it at the closest haze in the air. Or he thought was the haze. The round kept going till it hit the wall on the other side of the hallway. The sword swung around and charged at him. Master Chief fired again and a invisible Elite crumbled to the floor. The second swordsman was close behind the first. Master Chief took another shot, and the Elite bit the dust.

"Nice…" Frank grinned as Master Chief reloaded the sniper rifle and started to walk down the hall.

"Careful," peeped Vern, who hadn't budged a muscle since the first Elite went down. "There might be more of them."

Master Chief halted in the middle of the corridor and looked around. There weren't any more hovering swords. "I don't' see anything," he shrugged. "Let's go."

He went to the end of the hallway, turned right, and just like seconds before, went down a slope and right back up one. A big red dot on his Motion Tracker popped up and he swung his S2 AM in the direction of the dot. There was a wall.

"It must be behind the wall," Frank told him as he turned right to go around.

"Hold on," Master Chief told him as he scanned the room. Above their heads there was a walkway. If Frank and Vern helped him up there… he might be able to snipe whatever that dot was. "Lift me up," he ordered.

"Are you kidding me?" Vern chuckled. "You weight like five tons."

Master Chief jerked his head around to look at the marine. "Is that a fat joke?"

"Uh," Vern bit his lip. "I was just saying it would be kinda hard."

Frank turned and nodded. "But we'll try. C'mon."

They lifted John up to a ledge right below the walkway and he pulled himself up on top. He gave them a thumbs-up and crouched into the next room.

Two Hunters were patrolling the room and hadn't heard the Marines or the Spartan. Master Chief zoomed in on the nearest Hunter's orange back and fired. It groaned as it fell backwards. That's when the ground shook underneath John's feet. He turned and saw the second Hunter firing his Fuel Rod Cannon at him.

He fumbled with his gun, trying to hold it steady as the Hunter recharged his gun. Without thinking, Master Chief threw a plasma grenade at the Hunter where it stuck on its butt. He whooped as he thought it would blow the Hunter to bits. Instead it only exploded and made the Hunter angrier.

Master Chief grabbed his pistol and fired several shots into the Hunter's small head. It grunted as the bullets lodged themselves into its head. Finally it keeled over and died.

Standing up, Master Chief called for Frank and Vern. "It's OK! It was only two Hunters."

"That's a relief," Vern muttered as he stepped into the room from another way. Frank was right behind him.

"And look!" John pointed at some dead marine bodies. "Weapons!"

Frank, Vern and John reloaded their weapons, and Vern exchanged his pistol for a rocket launcher. With fully loaded weapons and clips, Frank retook his position of point and they went to the door.

Three Jackals were on the other side and Vern chucked a frag grenade at them and turned. The door closed and there was a boom on the other side and they stepped over the bits and pieces remaining of the Jackals and their plasma pistols. No sooner had they turned right though, two Grunts leapt out and squealed. Frank mowed them down with his assault rifle and turned left, where he dropped one more with a burst of lead and another with the butt of his rifle.

There was another turn left, and that's when Vern said, "Has anyone else noticed that these tunnels go left, right, left, right, left, right, left, left, right?"

Frank ignored him as he turned right and came to a large door.


End file.
